


Home is Where the Heart is

by ADeedWithoutaName



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, M/M, Weecest, Wincest - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-22
Updated: 2017-02-04
Packaged: 2018-03-08 16:27:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 33
Words: 237,467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3215822
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ADeedWithoutaName/pseuds/ADeedWithoutaName
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was wrong.  His dad told him that when he was nineteen, drummed it into him.  "I don't want to see you and your brother doing anything like this ever again.  Understand, Sammy?"  Sam understood.  And he hasn't even seen Dean since...but now Dad's missing, and Dean's back, and Sam can't help the way he feels.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> And this...this is my masterpiece in progress. One chapter a day, considering that there's currently twenty-two of them.

A window being opened.

The tiny sound that that made - the soft hiss of wood and glass sliding against each other-was what jerked Sam out of sleep, heart racing and adrenaline pouring into his bloodstream. He opened his eyes without moving a muscle, his instincts standing in for conscious thought while the more important parts of his brain woke up and making him keep his breathing even and his body completely still. After a second or two, he grimaced. Feeling the urge to draw his arms in to protect his stomach, he swiftly crushed it, closing his eyes and sighing deeply.

This was the third time this week that a small, random, totally normal household noise had woken him up in the middle of the night. The first time had been water dripping in the bathroom, the second a muffled, nearly-silent thud from the apartment above them. Stuff that didn't bother normal people when they were sleeping - Stuff that doesn't bother Jess, he thought with a little flicker of affection as he felt her shift her position slightly behind him.

At least it was better than it had been two years ago. When he woke up several times a night, on edge, totally convinced that fangs were about to sink into his face. Or a superhumanly strong blow was about to knock him out of bed and slam him into a wall. Or fingertips were about to trail liquid fire down over his upper mouth while a hot mouth pressed against his neck and muscular legs wrapped tight around his long ones -

No. Ugh. No, no, no.

He wasn't going to think about that. That was over.

With another sigh (quiet, so as not to wake Jess), Sam rolled over onto his back, looking up at the ceiling of their bedroom with half-closed eyes. Hands resting haphazardly on his chest and fingers twisted into the sheets, he tried to breathe evenly, tried to put himself back to sleep. He was capable of it, it just took awhile, as he knew all too well. He had to convince himself that no monsters were prowling around the apartment, and that everything was okay. He focused on familiar, reassuring noises: Jess's breathing, water gurgling softly through the pipes of the building, footsteps in the hallway. And he closed his eyes.

A second later, they flew open again.

Wait.

Footsteps in the hallway?

Sam sat up, swung his legs out of bed, and padded towards the bedroom doorway, all without waking Jess. His impressive height had been a real pain in the ass back when he was sixteen and it was brand-new, but he was used to it now, and could actually move pretty quietly, for a guy his size. It was a skill that he was grateful to have as he stalked through the apartment he shared with his girlfriend, trying to keep down the memories that doing this stirred up. If there actually was someone (Or something, maliciously whispered a little voice in the back of his mind) in here, he didn't want them to hear him before he found them. And if it was nothing, he most definitely did not want Jess to wake up and ask him why he was prowling around in the dark. That was a conversation he didn't ever plan on having.

But Sam's restless, vaguely self-conscious thoughts stilled when he saw something. There. A dark figure in the room, broad shoulders and close-cropped hair, made into a blurry silhouette by the darkness but still unmistakably human. And unmistakably male. He appeared to be meticulously looking over Sam and Jess's possessions, and Sam shook his head, silently moving across the room to wait for the guy to come to him.

Oh, man, did you pick the wrong people to rob, he thought, kind of amused, but mostly just resigned. Determined to get some use out of the useless skills he'd spent his childhood honing and defend his home and his girlfriend.

He couldn't help feeling a tiny bit gratified that, for once, his instincts had actually been right.

The guy walked softly, moving around the room, occasionally stopping to look at something in the dark and getting steadily closer to Sam. He seemed to know how to move quietly - it was obvious in his movements, something unconscious, but he wasn't making any real effort to hide the sounds he was making. Probably figured that the college kids this apartment belonged to wouldn't wake up or even think that something like this could happen to them.

And now he was in range.

Sam lunged forward, adrenaline singing in his veins and some part of him relieved that the waiting was over and he could actually fight. He grabbed the intruder by the shoulder, intending to pull him down and shove a knee against his head to knock him out, but the guy's arm shot up and pushed his hand away. The movement turned into a punch, which Sam ducked away from without thinking. His body moved on autopilot; inside, he was more than a little surprised. This guy had really great reflexes.

He actually knows how to fight.

He straightened up, hands flexing into fists.

Weird, for a cat burglar...but it's okay. So do I.

Before Sam could react, he felt a hand on his arm, a ring pressing into his flesh. The guy swung him around, handling him pretty easily even though he was quite a bit shorter than Sam, and shoved him, towards the doorway of the room. Sam stumbled, caught himself, and aimed a powerful kick towards his opponent, forgetting for a second that his feet were bare and he wasn't wearing his usual heavy, thick-soled boots. Not like it mattered. The guy blocked his kick with one forearm, then shoved him back again, back into the kitchen. Before he could get his bearings, an elbow caught him in the face. He saw stars and tasted blood. He kicked again, but it went high, and missed by a mile when the guy ducked. He tried to hit him again, but Sam managed to block this blow with a quiet grunt of effort, chest shuddering with fatigue and real fear. He might actually get beaten here - might actually get killed. By a human.

He couldn't decide if that was ironic or just stupid.

He didn't get a lot of time to think about it, because he was suddenly shoved roughly to the floor, his opponent using all his weight to pin him down, gripping his neck with one hand and his wrists with the other. So he couldn't move or fight back. The guy was well-muscled, and so close that Sam could smell him. Leather, sweat, cheap alcohol, a familiar brand of cologne, an inexplicable hint of something almost like vanilla - a thousand faint, masculine scents all mixing together to make something that Sam's body recognized before his brain did. His breathing sped up, and so did his heartrate, sending blood shooting downwards as a pretty private part of him woke up in reaction.

Oh, no.

The weight on top of him felt familiar now, pressing down in all the right spots. Maybe a little heavier, wider with muscle in the shoulders and chest and thighs than he remembered, a slightly more mature shape. But that could definitely happen in two years. Especially doing what he had to have been doing this whole time.

Oh, God, no.

He even recognized the hands. Callused and scarred and strong enough to snap a werewolf's neck, but so warm, and holding him oh-so-gently...

No. No no no no no -

"Whoa. Easy, tiger." His voice was rough, horribly familiar, and obviously amused. Sam's chest heaved; he felt like he couldn't get enough oxygen.

"Dean?" His own voice was barely a whisper.

The guy on top of him laughed, low and husky, and that was enough to break Sam out of his horrified stupor. With every hair on his body standing at attention and his blood feeling like acid in his veins, he yanked his hands free and shoved Dean off of him with more force than he knew was strictly necessary. He scrambled away, disgust making him shake a little, and forced himself to his feet. Backing up a bit, he felt the countertop against the backs of his thighs and knew he couldn't go any further. When Dean stood, too, he held both hands up, palms out, in a universal "stay-the-hell-away" gesture.

"Don't touch me," he ordered with surprising ferocity, breathing hard.

"Okay, fine." Dean held up his hands, too, staying where he was. "That's your bubble." He gestured to the space around Sam, smirking a little. The expression was visible even in the dim light. "Got it."

Sam, very slowly, lowered his hands, when Dean showed no sign of coming towards him. He pushed one up through his sleep-matted hair, blinking a couple of times in an effort to clear his head. He could still feel Dean's hands on him, and he shuddered, trying to push that sensation away. "What the hell are you doing here?"

"Well, I was looking for a beer..." Dean took a step forward, then stopped and rolled his eyes when Sam immediately tensed up. "Jeez. Think you might be taking this personal space kick just a little too far?"

"Just...stay away from me." He swallowed hard, all of his earlier confidence gone.

"Y'know, it's okay to let other people in." Dean put his hand over his heart and arranged his face into an over-the-top expression of concern. Sam, unamused, gritted his teeth.

"Seriously." He looked away, not wanting to make accidental eye contact even though he couldn't actually see Dean's eyes in the dark. "What the hell are you doing here, Dean?"

"Okay." The amusement vanishing suddenly, Dean stuffed his hands into the pockets of the jacket he was wearing. "All right." He sighed a little. "We gotta talk."

"I don't wanna talk to you," Sam said immediately, shaking his head a little, and immediately holding back a cringe because of how childish and petty that sounded. He hadn't thought for a second before saying it - being this close to Dean made his skin crawl and dredged up memories he'd really rather forget. He just wanted him out. Out of his apartment, out of his thoughts, out of his life. Like he had been for two years, before he just had to show up tonight and screw with everything Sam had here. He definitely didn't want to waste any time at all talking to him. He was already pretty sure he knew what he'd want to talk about, anyway.

Dean raised an eyebrow, the pale hair catching what little light there was in the apartment. "Well, what're you doing right now?"

Sam was about to reply when he heard bare feet padding against the floor, just a second before the light turned on. He automatically squinted as his eyes adjusted.

"Sam?"

He glanced towards the voice, seeing Jess standing in the doorway of the kitchen with her blonde hair all messed up from sleep and her expression confused. He was suddenly incredibly aware of how revealing the outfit that she slept in was, as Dean's gaze raked up and down her, practically burning away what little she was wearing. He felt a sudden flash of jealousy, but not concerning Jess.

How many women like her did you bed while I was gone, Dean?

He shoved that thought out of his head with as much mental force as he could.

"Jess," Sam started, doing his best to keep his tone calm. "Hey." He kept looking at her, making a point to keep Dean out of his field of vision. "Dean...this is my girlfriend. Jessica."

He looked over at Dean when he rocked back on his heels, and saw the perplexed expression on his face as he just kept taking Jess in. All of her, from her long legs to some of her...other assets. Sam could practically read his mind: Wait. Girlfriend?

And...was he imagining it, or had actual hurt flickered across his face when he introduced Jess as his girlfriend?

But it was gone now. Dean was wearing his crooked, cocky, "God's-gift-to-women-and-I-know-it" grin.

"Well," he said, gaze appreciative as he kept his eyes on Jess, "I definitely wasn't expecting you." The smile widened, and he held up his hands in a "kidding" gesture. "Not that I'm complaining, of course. You're just not my brother's usual type." He cast a sly glance at Sam, whose jaw tightened as he held himself rigid and aloof. He completely refused to rise to the bait.

Jess frowned a little, but didn't ask what he meant by that. Instead, she turned her attention back to Sam, asking, "Didn't you tell me your brother was Dean?"

That was pretty much all he had told her about his brother.

Brother. Just mentally connecting that word and everything it meant to Dean was enough to turn his stomach, bring on a wave of guilt and self-disgust that he only quelled out of pure necessity. He couldn't afford to get lost in feeling sorry for himself right now.

"Yeah." He nodded, reluctantly. "This is my - brother." If either Dean or Jess noticed the slight hitch in his voice, they didn't react to it.

"Nice to meet you." Dean walked over to stand by Sam, who tried to stiffen further and found that he couldn't, bare toes curling against the linoleum. He didn't want his brother anywhere near him, but he couldn't shove him away without having to explain that to Jess. And he would seriously consider killing himself as an acceptable alternative to explaining that. "Anyway, I gotta borrow your boyfriend here, talk about some private family business."

"No," Sam said immediately, pushing off of the counter and stalking over to put an arm around his girlfriend. Partly, it was to get away from Dean, all the guilt and pain and hatred that he dredged up. And, partly, it was to remind himself that he had Jess, he was hers, and let her slender, athletic build take his mind off his racing heart and the throbbing erection in his boxers.

Which - Oh, God - he really, really hoped no one but him had noticed.

"No," he repeated, shifting his weight a little self-consciously. "Whatever you want to say, you can say it in front of her."

"Well, if you're sure." Dean took a deep breath. "Dad hasn't been home in a few days."

Dad. Sam kept his face neutral. I would think you'd be glad he's gone, he snapped inside his own head. I've seen the way he looks at you, and I know what he's thinking. It's the same way he used to look at me. We disgust him, both of us. But you especially, I think.

"Are you sure he didn't just run off without you?" he asked instead. It really wouldn't surprise him if their father had finally gotten sick of Dean, being around him and pretending to be oblivious. Maybe he couldn't look him in the eye anymore - like Sam hadn't been able to.

A muscle in Dean's jaw twitched, but other than that, he didn't react to the implication that John'd abandoned him. Sam felt a weird sort of disappointment.

"Dad's on a hunting trip," he clarified. "And he hasn't been home in a few days."

Internally, Sam sighed. He didn't want to admit it...but that changed everything. He couldn't wave Dean's concern off as childish or unfounded. As much as he didn't want to, as fresh as the memory of John's hate for him was, the man had raised him. And he hadn't thrown him out or hit him or anything when he found out what Sam had been doing. He had to at least hear Dean out - he owed their father that much. Besides. He probably wouldn't leave the apartment without a fight until Sam'd listened to what he had to say.

"Jess, excuse us," he said quietly. "We have to go outside."

Dean waited for him while he ducked back into the bedroom just long enough to pull on jeans and a hoodie and talk Jess into at least trying to go back to bed while he was gone. When he came back, Dean gave his outfit a once-over that seemed just a little too critical, then led the way out the front door and to the stairs. Sam made no effort to be quiet as they went down, knowing that the neighbors wouldn't be able to hear him; every time his boots hit a new step, they made a noise like a thunderclap. Dean was much quieter.

"You realize I'm not leaving with you," Sam said as they reached a landing. Dean glanced back at him over his shoulder.

"I wondered why you didn't pack anything," he said. "Guess I just figured all your stuff was useless now. I mean, you obviously don't own knives or guns or anything practical." He paused on the stairs below Sam, turning to smirk up at him. "Why else would you have tried to take down an armed prowler in your underwear?"

Sam chose to ignore that.

"I'll let you tell me why you think you needed to come out here and tell me all about Dad, but that's it," he said. When Dean didn't answer, he continued with, "I mean, come on. You can't just break in, middle of the night, and expect me to hit the road with you."

"You're not hearing me, Sammy - "

"Don't call me that."

That shut Dean up immediately, and Sam was surprised by the venom in his own voice. He sounded just as vicious as he had when he'd told Dean not to touch him, if not more so.

And now his heart was racing again. He shoved past his brother, trying to ignore the miniature lightning bolt of excitement that the nickname had sent zinging up his spine. He could practically feel hands resting heavily on his hips, spread over his chest and pulling him back against another warm, muscular body, tangled in the hair he didn't like to cut as someone gasped against his mouth between fevered kisses.

Someone. No way was he using names in these involuntary little fantasies.

"So you don't like it anymore?" Dean spoke up suddenly. Sam froze. "You loved being called that, awhile back. Used to whimper and howl - "

Sam spun around, furiously meeting his brother's green gaze. "Shut up."

Dean raised an eyebrow. "What?"

"I said, shut up. We're not gonna talk about any of...that." Sam spit the last word out like it had been burning the inside of his mouth, turning away so he wouldn't have to look at him. "None of it should have ever happened, I wish more than anything that it hadn't, and, as far as I'm concerned...it didn't." He shook his head, anger dulling into pain and guilt, and, for some reason he couldn't fathom, he felt absolutely terrible. "Just let me forget about it, okay? That's what I want."

Dean stayed quiet and still for a couple seconds, his expression completely unreadable in the dim light of the stairwell and his eyes gleaming when Sam glanced at him. Finally, he spoke, his voice flat and utterly devoid of emotion.

"Okay," he said. "Let's just focus on finding Dad, then."


	2. Chapter Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And this is where it gets disturbing.
> 
> Also, finally figured out the HTML codes for formatting!

This wasn't the reunion Dean had been expecting.

Sure, he knew that Sam had been pissed when he ran off. Pissed at Dad, pissed at him (for whatever Godforsaken reason), pissed at, pretty much, the entire world. He remembered the screaming match, trying to get between his father and his younger brother to break them up like he usually did, and not being able to. There had been something... _different_ that time, even though the fight hadn't even been about anything important (to be honest, he didn't really remember what it even _had_ been about), and Dean had been able to tell that something had finally _snapped_ inside Sam. The second he grabbed his backpack and his coat and stalked out into the night, Dean knew that he wouldn't be coming home in a few hours with burning eyes and a need so desperate he might actually have to shove him off and get some air. Which was what he usually did when these sorts of things happened.

Dean just let him leave and didn't go after him, two years ago, because of the way that Dad kept looking between him and Sam, disgusted and disappointed but never saying a word about why he was feeling that way (he was grateful for that; his dad might hate him, but at least they were still on the same page when it came to protecting Sammy), and how quiet Sam'd gotten at the end, and the look he'd given him as he left. Shame, disgust, something that looked a lot like hate but just couldn't be. Dean could never believe that Sam hated him. Not after everything they'd done and said.

In the beginning, he had honestly just been waiting for a hospital to call one of Dad's phones and tell him that Sam was bleeding out or concussed or partially disemboweled in their emergency room. (Though, now, why he'd ever thought he would be hunting was beyond him.) Then they could go pick him up, and get him all better, and everything would be okay. Maybe they'd even get the chance to play 'doctor' while Dad was out, once Sam was feeling better - Dean wasn't ashamed to admit that that exciting thought had crossed his mind more than once.

The Stanford thing came as a bit of a shock, but mostly because he'd had to hear it from his father. Sam hadn't called or texted or even so much as sent a freaking postcard to tell him that he'd finally decided to go with that scholarship. The scholarship that he had first told Dean about while lying in bed with Dad out on a bender at some hick bar, his face pressed against Dean's chest with his shaggy hair all messed up from sex - oh, that was a good memory. Right now, Dean couldn't keep a smile off his face as he thought about it.

So, Sam hadn't contacted him. Dean figured he needed space, time to cool off, and gave him that. He gave him two freaking years of that.

So when Dad had dropped off the face of the Earth, and he'd finally had a chance to head west and see his baby brother, he'd been ecstatic. Two whole _years_. Granted, he hadn't been exactly celibate during those two years - a guy had needs, after all - but every single man or woman he'd so much as laid hands on was an unbelievably poor substitute for Sam. His first, his favorite, his only. And he'd thought that Sam would...what, exactly? Fall into his arms with a little coo of affection? Light up the second he saw him, beam and laugh and pull him into a loving bear hug? Throw him up against a wall and shower him with desperate, eager kisses?

The truth was that Dean wasn't quite sure about the details of what he'd been expecting. But it definitely hadn't been this.

Sam stalked ahead of him, taking the stairs two at a time, making a beeline for the heavy fire door that led out into the parking lot of this building, where Dean had left his Impala. He kept his eyes on his brother's back, fury making his head pound as everything Sam had said, ever cutthroat verbal stab, cycled through his mind.

_Don't touch me._

Don't call me that.

Shut up.

I wish it hadn't happened.

Just let me forget about it, okay? That's what I want.

It was almost enough to make him hate him, right now, for how much it had hurt to hear those things come out of his mouth. And how totally revolted he'd sounded when talking to him, how vicious.

Dean hadn't expected the high-end, well-decorated apartment. He hadn't expected the apparent lack of weaponry. He actually _had_ expected that Sam just might be sleeping with someone, but...a girl? No, he hadn't expected that. And he definitely hadn't expected to feel so...despised.

Right now, he just didn't know what to think. Or what to do. Or anything.

All he really knew was that Sam had touched him for the first time in two years, been all pressed against him. Granted, it hadn't exactly been sexual, but that didn't change the fact that he was aching all over with the need to touch and be touched more, and his cock was throbbing in his pants, so hard it was painful. He hadn't felt like this in years, and was pretty sure he was moving around in his own little cloud of "I-really-need-to-bang-something" pheromones. The only thing that stopped him from catching up to Sam, wrapping his arms around his waist while he purred into his neck and used his fingertips to tease at the bulge in the front of his jeans, was how standoffish and stiff and angry Sam was now. He wouldn't like it, he wouldn't reciprocate. He'd fight him off and scream at him some more, and by then Dean probably would have blown any chance he'd had of being heard out on the subject of Dad's disappearing act.

So he left Sam alone, even though he remembered how it used to be, and the very first time that he'd figured out that Sam had something, _was_ something, he couldn't find anywhere else. Thinking about that sent a zing of excitement and sudden guilt howling up his spine. That was a pretty good memory, too; much better than the present. Dean wondered if Sam remembered it, too.

But maybe he'd been too young.

**Late November, 1986**

"I probably won't be gone all that long."

Dean nodded to show that he understood, staring reverently up at the tall, scruffy, leather-jacket-wearing figure that was his dad.

"Keep the doors and windows locked. Don't let anyone in, and don't answer the phone."

"Yes, sir," Dean said. He knew the drill by now, how important it was to do what Dad said, the sorts of things that could come after him and Sammy while he was gone. But he couldn't help feeling proud that Dad trusted him to do this, stay home alone, and he still couldn't get over how cool it was that he was going off to fight monsters.

"And look after Sammy."

"Yes, sir." Dean nodded again. Sammy was little, helpless, had no idea what Dad did. He didn't even know enough to be afraid when he left. Not that Dean was ever afraid, either, but he kinda envied his little brother for his cluelessness. He intended to make sure he was clueless for a long time, though.

"That's my boy." Dad patted him on the head as he turned and went out the door, ruffling his close-cropped blonde hair. He'd just cut it for him, saying it was impractical to have hair as long as his had been getting. He watched him go, then locked the door behind him and headed back into the bedroom. Sammy was asleep on the bed that Dean shared with him. He thought about crawling in next to his brother, where it would be warm and comfortable despite the scratchy sheets and he'd feel perfectly safe. But, no, he wanted to shower first. They'd been in the car for the past couple of days with no running water, and Dad had given Sammy a bath before he left, but Dean had been busy helping to lay out the salt and the iron. He imagined he could feel dirt rubbing between his clothes and his skin, and, right now, getting clean sounded just the tiniest bit better than sleeping.

He didn't stay under the spray of water long, intent on just getting clean and going to bed. Not to mention not disturbing Sammy. But even just five minutes of running water must have been enough to wake him up, because when Dean came out of the bathroom with a towel wrapped around his body and thrown over his head like a cloak, his younger brother was sitting up in bed, hair mussed and covers puddled over his folded legs. Dean couldn't help but feel a rush of warmth when he saw him. He didn't exactly have a lot of contact with three-year-olds other than Sammy, but he was pretty sure that his brother was remarkable. Sam could talk just as good as he could now, and Dean thought he might already be reading a little (he blurted out the names of gas stations when they drove past them, but maybe he just recognized the logos), and he was just so unconditionally _loyal_. It was times like this - Sammy, blinking sleepily and the old T-shirt of Dad's that he wore as pajamas huge on him - that Dean couldn't help but love him (not that he'd ever admit that), and find that he really didn't mind taking care of him. Just as long as he didn't start crying or something, being really annoying.

"Hey," Dean said. He crawled up onto the bed with the thin motel towel still wrapped around him, kneeling right in front of his brother. He was mostly dry now, and he let the corner that covered his head slide off. The winter air that came through the crappy seals on the windows made his damp scalp tingle. "You're s'posed to be asleep."

"You woke me up." Sammy's voice was matter-of-fact, not whiny or anything like that.

"Sorry. Didn't mean to." Dean glanced towards the olive-drab duffel bag in the corner, which held most of his stuff, including the boxers and ripped T-shirt that he slept in. He should really get ready for bed; it was getting late.

"'S okay," Sammy replied in his calm little-boy voice. He yawned. "I was having a bad dream."

The dichotomy of Sammy's reactions to his nightmares never ceased to amaze Dean. Sometimes, he woke up screaming and crying. Sometimes, he was perfectly calm about it. Like now. Dean had nightmares, too, but he always brought himself out of it without making a sound and laid there, stiff, until the irrational terror passed. Sometimes he hugged his brother, who didn't seem to mind, close to him, just to remind himself that he had _someone_. But he never woke Dad up like Sam did. And his dreams had a lot more horrible variety - all of Sammy's monsters had yellow eyes and bled poison into his mouth. God only knew where he'd come up with that.

"Oh. Uh." Nightmares were just not Dean's area of expertise, despite his own experience with them. "What was it about?" He was okay with heating up condensed soup for Sammy and patching up all his scrapes and bruises, but bad dreams and feelings were just a little too girly for him to deal with comfortably. He wished Dad were here. Not that he seemed to like doing this sort of thing any more than Dean did.

"You were gone, and Dad didn't wanna look for you." Sammy frowned. "I was alone. I missed you."

"Well, I'm here now. I'm right here."

"Uh-huh." He reached out to touch Dean, maybe because of some childish need to convince himself that he was real. "I'm happy." His tiny hand rested against Dean's bare thigh, palm warm and fingers splayed, and his thumb brushed against his penis.

Dean gasped before he could stop himself. The contact sent lightning bolts through him, just that little touch spreading tingles up through his stomach and the small of his back. His heart sped up, hammering against his ribs so hard he started to feel light-headed. He felt blood rushing down into his crotch, making him twitch, just a little. This wasn't something he ever remembered happening before, and he wasn't quite sure what to think.

Sammy pulled his hand away as Dean let the towel fall to the bed behind him and leaned back, bracing his arms against the mattress and staring at his cock, stiffening just a little and swelling between his legs. It...felt kind of good, actually, throbbing with an eager need he didn't really understand. But it didn't feel finished. He wanted Sam to touch him again, wanted those lightning bolts back. He wanted to look into those clear hazel eyes of his while it happened.

Speaking of Sammy, he made a small, curious noise, looking at Dean's half-erect cock with wide eyes. He pushed the blankets off of his legs, mirroring Dean's kneeling position and leaning forward. He glanced up at his brother, face open and fascinated.

"What'd I do?" he asked.

"I dunno, Sammy," Dean answered, breathing hard. Before he could say anything else, Sam reached out and touched the swelling head of his cock with soft fingertips. Dean closed his eyes, a quiet groan slipping out of him as the touch made him throb in a way that wasn't entirely unpleasant, stiffening just a little more. Sammy jerked his hand back.

"Does it hurt?"

"No. No way." Dean shook his head rapidly, the little taste of pleasure he'd just gotten making him want more. "No, it feels _good_."

"Really?" Sam's expression was so anxious it was almost funny. Panting just a little, the tip of his tongue hanging over his lower lip, Dean shook his head again. He ran his fingers reassuringly through his brother's silky hair, gently cupping the side of his face and trying to make that childish worry disappear.

"Really. You're not hurting me," he assured him. Sammy didn't reply to that, just glanced back down at Dean's manhood, at the way it had grown and hardened but didn't look quite complete, and the smooth, unbroken skin of it. He touched again, stroking his palm up and down his brother's length, moving a little faster and pressing a little harder when he realized that what he was doing was making Dean's cock swell more. Dean watched him, breathing hard, just as fascinated as Sammy was as he felt himself grow to his full length. Sam's gentle movements drew him up, made him breath harder and his hips twitch forward a little. The need was greater now, delicious tingles spreading out through his crotch and up into the rest of his body, and that feeling of being stuck halfway was gone now. Apparently sensing that his work was done, Sammy let go of him, leaning back and cocking his head as he looked at what he'd managed to do to Dean. He just looked really interested, curious, not quite sure what it was that had happened but liking it. Dean had to agree with him there.

Sammy kept examining Dean's cock for a few more seconds, before leaning forward again, and reaching out. Hesitantly, as if afraid that he'd be told to cut it out at any second, he wrapped one hand around the base, his thumb and middle finger barely touching. Dean realized just how small his hands were, and just how cute that was. "W-what're you doing, Sammy?" His own voice was so low and husky that he barely recognized it. He couldn't believe how good it felt, to be touched like this. How sensitive this part of him was. The sounds he was making - was this...sexual?

He knew, basically, how sex worked. But, no, this couldn't have anything to do with sex. From the few glimpses that he had caught of Dad and the random women he sometimes brought back to the room with him, sex didn't involve hands, or this weird thing that was going on with his dick. Just a lot of moaning and being tangled together.

Not answering him, Sammy drew his hand up, all the way to the head of Dean's cock, squeezing gently and drawing a low moan out of him. Dean stroked his hair again, gently, lovingly, as he moved down, then up again. He gasped sharply, a wide smile of pure pleasure spreading across his face, and Sammy looked up and smiled back. He looked happy, excited, just glad that he was making his big brother feel so good. Dean half-wondered if he should tell him to stop. So they could figure out what was going on, why he liked it so much - and there was clear liquid, cloudier than water, beading on the tip of him now, was that normal?

But he decided against it. Especially when Sam started to use his other hand in a "just-wanna-see-what'll-happen" kind of way, teasing Dean's head while he worked his first hand up and down his shaft. He sped up as he gained confidence and pressed hard in all the right places to get a gasp or a moan out of him. He stroked the end of Dean's cock with his fingertips, almost petting, and Dean panted, trying to get a grip on himself. This was okay. It felt good, it made him happy, it made Sammy happy.

So why did he feel a mounting pressure in his balls, his cock?

"D-don't stop, Sam," Dean said shakily, swallowing hard and then involuntarily throwing his head back with a moan as his brother's thumb brushed up against a spot that was, apparently, particularly sensitive. "Don't stop."

"Okay." Sammy sounded eager and happy, and his movements, which had been clumsy at first, were getting more and more refined, sending greater and greater waves of pleasure crashing through Dean. He shuddered, gasping, but he definitely wasn't surprised by how good Sam was at this. He'd been holding a pencil perfectly just the other day, his hand-eye coordination was impressive, and - and, oh, _God_ , that felt good.

"Faster," Dean almost begged, hand still resting on Sammy's head with his fingers all tangled up in his hair. He did as he was told, his little hands speeding up, and Dean bit his lip and squeezed his eyes shut and breathed hard through his nose as he tried to understand what was happening to him. He smelled soap, both the kind he used and the sort that Dad broke out whenever he gave Sammy a bath, and Sammy's toothpaste (all his baby teeth were already in), and his own sweat, and a sharp, musky, animal smell he didn't recognize.

Sammy was leaning over him now, really concentrating on what he was doing, delicate fingers leaving trails that burned deliciously all up and down Dean's cock. Dad's old gray T-shirt was stretched taut across his back, outlining shoulder blades that were as small and fragile-looking as the wings of a baby bird. They twitched with every panted breath, hot little excited puffs of air that Dean could feel against his dick. That - Sammy's warm breath on him - was enough to get rid of whatever self-control he still had.

With a cry high-pitched enough to embarrass him later, he cupped the side of Sammy's head with one hand, and used the other to grab his shoulder and hang on for dear life as his body arched. Pleasure so intense it practically made his vision blur ripped through him, and the building pressure vanished into an overwhelming sense of relief as a hot white mess shot out of him. It splattered onto his bare belly, Sam's hands, the sheets and blankets, and Sam's shirt. As soon as that stuff was out of him, and that sharp smell had intensified, the pleasure started to ebb, leaving Dean feeling shaky and exhausted and like he was walking on clouds.

Sam let go of him, and Dean noticed that his cock was shrinking, softening. His little brother examined the cream-colored mess on his hands and shirt, which practically glowed in the dim lights of the motel room, not disgusted, just curious. That went on for a couple seconds, as he rubbed it between his fingers and looked at it and basically just explored. Finally, he looked up at Dean, and wordlessly held his hands up to him.

Dean grimaced. He was in second grade, and he knew what that was; the other kids talked about it enough. Jizz. Come. There were a million names for it, each worse than the last, and everyone acted like it was pretty much the filthiest thing that could come out of a guy - though no one really knew just how it came out of a guy. But he wasn't so sure about that anymore. He'd made a mess, yeah, but there wasn't anything filthy about what he and Sammy had just done, was there?

"Sorry," he said, voice apologetic. "Let's get you cleaned up."

He pulled Sammy's shirt up and off over his head, completely exposing his little brother. His tiny penis, his soft belly, his pale, perfect skin. Dean had to bite his lip to keep from exclaiming over just how gorgeous he looked right then, especially looking up at him so trustingly with his dark hair falling back. He balled up the shirt around the stain on it and stuffed it deep into the trash can, then took Sammy into the bathroom and held him up so he could wash his hands. After using a paper towel to scrub his stomach clean, he got dressed, put a clean shirt on Sam, and stripped the bed, dumping the soiled sheets next to the door. So housekeeping would be sure to find them. Dean found extra bedding in the drawers of one of the nightstands, and once the mattress was no longer bare, he crawled underneath the covers next to his brother, completely exhausted. Unexpectedly, Sammy snuggled right up against him. He pressed his face into his chest and grabbed onto his shirt, begging to be held without saying a word. Dean put his arms around him, rubbing soothingly right between his shoulder blades, and closed his eyes.

"Um...thanks," he said quietly, unsure what to say after what had just happened between the two of them. What Sam had just done for him.

He all but burrowed into him, his grip on his shirt getting tighter, and his voice was muffled when he said, "I'm glad you're here. Not gone."

Dean tucked his head down, so his chin rested against the top of Sammy's head. When he started to talk, he kept his voice low and quiet, but just going by the way his brother squirmed and cooed, he heard him.

"I love you."

**Mid-September, 2005**

_Still do, Sammy._ Dean watched Sam shove open the door and lead the way out into the parking lot, legs stiff and back ramrod-straight, and followed him with his hands shoved deep into his pockets. _You might hate me, or something, and I might not get why, but I just can't help that I still love you._

Sam paused, for a moment, looking around the parking lot until he spotted the Impala - _She_ is _pretty hard to miss,_ Dean realized with a guttering flash of pride - and walked over to it. He moved with that graceful, long-legged stride that Dean remembered, but he seemed more...relaxed, somehow, than he had two years ago. He didn't glance over his shoulder as he walked, and he didn't have half-predatory, half-defensive aspect to his gait that Dean knew still had to be present in his own. And he was really _loud,_ too. What had happened to make him let his guard down so much? Was it just a concentrated effort to appear more "normal" or whatever? Had nothing bad happened to him? No monster attacks, no weirdness in the newspapers that piqued his interest and sent him into danger, no curses or magical diseases or anything cropping up around him...?

Maybe stuff had happened, just not to him or anyone he cared about, so he didn't care. That thought bothered Dean a little.

Sam stopped next to the trunk of the car, waiting. Once Dean had joined him, he looked away, speaking without making eye contact.

"Again," he started, "there is no way I'm running off with you. Tell me whatever you want about Dad and what's going on with him, but I'm not leaving. Not now, not ever. I'm done. I was done two years ago." He coughed slightly, turning so his face was thrown entirely into shadow. "Whatever you're gonna say...I don't care. I'm staying here."

"Really?" Dean asked skeptically, letting smartassery take the place of the hurt he couldn't seem to dislodge from his chest. "So...what're you gonna do? You're just gonna live some normal, apple-pie life? Is that it?"

"No. Not normal. Safe," Sam replied. He hesitated, then continued, facing Dean. "Though I guess things are a lot more normal for me now than what I was doing before."

Somehow, Dean didn't think he was talking about how freaking weird hunting could get, and that felt like a punch to the gut. And, as usually happened when he got punched, Dean started getting pissed.

"And that's why you ran away," he said, glancing away before he couldn't help himself anymore and started yelling. It wasn't a question, and he sure as hell wasn't talking about hunting, either.

"I was just going to college," Sam said stiffly.

"Sure you were."

A long, awkward silence followed, and Dean immediately just wanted to take a step forward and pull his little brother into his arms, tell him he hadn't meant to sound so bitter, tell him he wasn't mad at him. He wanted to tell him that he was here now, everything would be okay, they could pick up right where they left off and it would be like nothing had ever happened. But that urge dimmed pretty quickly when he saw the way that Sam was looking at him - eyes full of disgust so strong Dean was surprised it didn't just start eating holes in his jacket. Like acid. He started talking, just to break the silence and get his mind off what he was feeling right now. And to get Sam to stop looking at him like that.

"Yeah, well." He cleared his throat. "Dad's in real trouble right now. If he's not dead already." He shifted his weight, lifting his chin a little. "I can feel it."

Sam didn't say anything. He was looking away now, and there was something tense, almost painful in the set of his shoulders. Dean crushed another urge to hold him and whisper comforting things. He'd probably try to rip his throat out with his teeth.

"I can't do this alone," Dean said, shaking his head

"Yes, you can," Sam said quietly. Dean shrugged.

"Yeah, well, I don't want to."

He immediately regretted saying that. It just sounded so...so needy, so vulnerable, so _broken_ , and it would probably make Sam even more disgusted with him. He shouldn't have said that. Or he should have elaborated. Said that he got in a lot of bar fights or something, and he needed another strong guy he could count on to save his ass if his ass needed saving, but time was running out now and he couldn't add anything onto it. Sam sighed heavily, looking down, and Dean's stomach dropped. He was probably about to tell him exactly what he thought of him. How he felt. And, judging by the way he'd been acting, it was gonna hurt. When he raised his head, Dean braced himself.

_God, no, I can't lose you. Not for real._

But Sam didn't tell him that he hated him and wanted him out of his life. Instead, he just shook his hair back from his face and asked, "What was he hunting?"

His voice was dry, almost viciously sarcastic, but Dean would take what he would get. Unlocking the trunk of the Impala, he told himself he felt a little better now.

He didn't, not really. But at least Sam was here, with him, not halfway across the country.

He was happy about that.


	3. Chapter Three

"All right. I'll go. I'll help you find him."

As soon as the words were out of his mouth, Sam wanted to take them back. Panic started down in his stomach and threatened to crawl up his throat and choke him as the full realization of what he'd just agreed to dawned on him. He was going to be alone with Dean. In the car, in a hotel room, only inches away from him at times. Close enough to feel the familiar heat coming off his body, to hear the rasp of every breath, to accidentally brush up against him. Or not so accidentally. The memory of a million different touches over the years suddenly flared up all over him - blazing handprints on his chest, the imprints of fingertips glowing in the small of his back, gently-cupped palms lighting up his face. They burned so hot he was surprised that he was only really glowing in his own head, and he automatically took a giant step back.

Dean looked shocked, but probably not by the movement. He looked like he honestly hadn't expected Sam to say yes to him - at least, not as fast as he had. He'd only talked for about ten minutes, laid out their father's most recent case for him, drawing newspaper clippings and photographs out of the trunk of his beloved Impala, having Sam listen to the voicemail their dad had left him - the very last time he'd contacted him - and the voice that he'd managed to pick up in the background of it. This had all been interspersed with wisecracks and anecdotes and references to stuff the three of them had done together in the past, and Sam had started to hear the tension underneath his brother's aggressively-amused demeanor. The worry for their father, the guilt at having let him down, longing and affection that made Sam swallow hard and try to keep the reciprocal feelings that automatically sprang up under control.

_You're hell-bent on saving a guy who thinks you're an abomination, and you don't even know that he hates you._ That was the thought that kept cycling bitterly through his head as Dean explained everything to him. He didn't want to feel sympathetic towards him, all alone and on the verge of completely losing his calm facade. He didn't want to feel worried about Dad.

But he did. On both counts.

"Really means a lot to me, Sammy - Sam." Dean nodded gratefully to him, and apparently pretended not to notice when the nickname made him stiffen and grit his teeth. "Thanks."

"I'm going with you. But I have to get back first thing Monday." Sam had to force the words out, past all his misgivings and discomfort. _Oh, God, why am I doing this...?_ Stiffly, he turned to go back inside. "Just wait here."

Dean's voice made him pause. "What's first thing Monday?"

"I have this..." He hesitated, not sure he should tell him, then decided it really didn't matter. "I have an interview."

"What, a job interview?" He made a dismissive gesture, looking unimpressed. "Skip it."

"It's a law school interview," Sam replied, anger starting to boil in his stomach. "It's my whole future on a plate."

"Law school?" Dean raised an eyebrow. "You wanna be a lawyer?"

"I do." Sam felt a sudden, desperate, almost childish need to hurt him, for the skepticism in his voice and the way he kept hungrily raking his eyes over him and the fact that _he didn't know_ how much Dad hated them, or why. "Not sure what I want to major in, though. Maybe I'll just take the cases no one else wants to touch. Statutory rape. Child molestation. Incest."

He knew he might have gone too far, by the sick little ache in his own chest. Reducing what they'd had to such clinical, ugly terms that didn't fit at all - no, he couldn't afford to think like that. Not now. Not even with Dean standing right in front of him, reminding him of some of the only times he'd been actually, really happy, and the little flutters of misguided affection that kept sneaking past his barriers, and the massive erection chafing against the cotton of his boxers. He told himself, very firmly, that everything he was feeling were just echoes of something that never should have happened - and he thought he might even believe it.

He'd expected Dean to react. Yell at him, lunge at him, even just twist up his face into an expression of fury and hurt. But, just like on the stairs, he stayed completely impassive, face and body language shutting down into a smooth shell that broadcast nothing. Sam wondered where this stone mask of his had come from, because he'd never seen it before. And he'd really thought that he'd seen Dean's everything.

_Cut it out. It's not good to keep dredging these thoughts and memories back up, not healthy..._

"Look, I just wanna find Dad," Dean said. His voice was just as expressionless as his face. "And I thought you said we weren't gonna talk about this."

He had. And while it made him absolutely furious to have his own words thrown back in his face like his, he was mature enough to know that he couldn't keep lashing out at his brother like he had been - despite how much he might want to - if he wanted to keep this whole thing as short and as free of any kind of contact as he wanted it to be. So he nodded, just once, and forced himself to cool down.

"We aren't," Sam said, doing his best to match Dean's tone. He cleared his throat, a little awkwardly, before saying, "So. Monday. We got a deal or not?"

"Well, I'll sure as hell try to make sure you get back in time for this school-thing of yours," he replied. "But you should really know that I can't make any promises."

Sam did know. He had spent nearly twenty years learning that stuff like this never turned out to be as simple as you hoped and prayed it was gonna be.

______________________________________________________________

"Wait, you're taking off?"

Sam's head jerked up, and he automatically clamped the secondary compartment of his backpack closed while he glanced over his shoulder. Jess, who'd been in the kitchen with a mug of coffee when he'd come back into their apartment, stood in the doorway. She looked worried, and a little perplexed, and both exhausted and perky at the same time - a sign of caffeine use that he was more than familiar with, having gone straight from being a monster hunter whose targets operated almost exclusively at ungodly hours of the night to an undergrad student.

Looking at her messy blonde hair and the faded clothes she wore as pajamas and the tired slouch of her shoulders, he felt an immediate rush of affection, soured a little by the realization that he was going to have to leave her.

"Is this about your dad?" she asked, her voice concerned as she stepped into the bedroom. Sam immediately zipped up the open compartment of his backpack, so she wouldn't see all the non-conventional (and, in several cases, highly illegal) weaponry stacked neatly inside. He just thanked whatever deity was currently willing to listen that she hadn't come in while all the knives were laid out on the bedspread. "Is he all right?"

"Yeah," he replied, reluctantly leaving the backpack and the mini-arsenal, which had been hidden deep in the closet and never so much as touched for two years. It made him nervous, to have weaponry (and, more importantly, a symbol of who and what he was and how dangerous that could be) so close to his girlfriend. She looked so fragile. "You know, just a little family drama."

He walked over to their dresser, pulling open a drawer and grabbing a couple shirts and a pair of jeans at random. Jess sat down on the bed - ironically, right where the knives had been - as he dropped the clothes into his backpack. Without even thinking about it, he extended the movement to gently sweep a little strand of hair out of her face, from where it had fallen right in front of her eyes. She looked up at him.

"You'll be back before Monday morning, right?" she asked.

"Of course."

And he would, one way or another. Even if he had to leave Dean alone out in Nowhere, U.S.A.

Jess hesitated, then spoke again.

"Y'know, you've never really talked about your family," she began.

"Not much to talk about," Sam replied abruptly, zipping the backpack closed.

"Yeah, I know, you've said that before. But...now you're taking off in the middle of the night with your brother." She bit her lip. "What's going on between you two, anyway?"

Sam suddenly felt like he'd swallowed a bucket of liquid nitrogen.

"What do you mean?" he asked, his nonchalant tone sounding incredibly strained, even to him. _Oh, God, please don't tell me you've figured out...us. Don't start looking at me like...like..._ His mental voice trailed off. _Not you. I don't think I could take you knowing._

"Well, you get so tense when he's around. Even right now, you're wound tighter than I've ever seen you," Jess pointed out. "And you keep looking at him like, um, like you want to take a swing at him."

He immediately relaxed, a reassuring smile spreading across his face, not noticing the slight hesitation in her voice. Like she'd wanted to say something else, or been about to add something.

"We don't really get along," he explained, reaching down to take her hand and pull her up into a standing position, so she wasn't looking up so far. What he'd said was, basically, the truth. "Don't worry, though. It'll be okay."

"Why are you going with him, then? Can't he go check on your dad on his own?"

"He's not really used to being on his own." The words came out before Sam even really realized he was speaking them. "I mean, he's always had me, or Dad, or both of us, and he needs a moral compass. Somebody to lean on. I can't let him charge off alone."

And this was the truth, he realized. He'd be doing everyone a service, keeping Dean on a leash ( _No, no, no, use a different metaphor..._ ). Making sure he didn't punch someone's lights out in a bar or a gas station or a parking lot, or peg the wrong person as a monster, or go just a little too far while interviewing civilians. Granted, though, the loose-cannon side of him had only really started to shine through when Dad had stuck around for a couple days in a row and he hadn't been able to touch Sam like he wanted to -

A little shiver of what he told himself, firmly, was disgust made Jess look at him funny, and he gave her another reassuring smile.

"Hey," he said gently, swinging his backpack up onto one shoulder. "Everything's going to be okay. I will make it back in time, I promise."

He pulled her towards him, wrapping her in his arms and resting his chin on top of her head. When she pulled back a little and tilted her face up, he kissed her on the lips, a soft, lingering, unmistakable "goodbye" kiss that he guessed neither of them were really familiar with. And, right then, he really hated himself for feeling anything at all for Dean, ever, and wished that he just had Jess to worry about. She deserved a whole lot better than him.

He held her for a little longer, regretting ever telling Dean he'd go with him, and then left.

_____________________________________________________________

It was dawn before either Sam or Dean spoke. Sam would have been the first to admit that the silence in the car had passed 'awkward' several hours back, but he preferred it to the alternative. He stared out the window, watching scrubby desert scenery roll past and listening to the hum of the engine, which was practically a lullaby from his childhood. Right up there with Dean's voice, before things started going just as wrong between them as they possibly could, and AC/DC albums.

He might have found it oddly comforting, to be back in the Impala, if the atmosphere hadn't been quite so...tense.

Dean finally decided he'd had enough and broke the silence with a loud sigh, drumming the tips of his fingers on the steering wheel and glancing over at Sam, who very carefully ignored him.

"So," he started. Sam, wishing for once that he was smaller so he could fold himself up against his side of the car, closed his eyes. "You're not even gonna ask where we're going?"

"You already told me," he replied, eyes still closed and voice flat.

"I did?" Dean sounded surprised.

"Lake City, Nevada. Abandoned Army base. Locals started disappearing, so Dad went to check it out."

"Huh," Dean said thoughtfully. Sam heard him lean back in his seat, probably only leaving the fingers of one hand on the wheel and casually tossing his other arm back. It was a pose he had hated, for being outdated and contrived, even back when they were...younger. "I guess I did, then." He laughed, suddenly, and it was so forced it made Sam's throat ache. "Only twenty-six and I'm already losing my memory. I'm just screwed, huh, Samm - Sam?"

_Well, at least this time, he managed not to say it._

"Y'know, I just remembered that there's a bunch of stuff I've been wanting to tell you all about," he went on, artlessly changing the subject. "For example. Last July, a bunch of recent divorcees turned up dead of heart attacks in their beds up in Oregon, so me and Dad went up there, and found out it was a succubus. A couple of succubuses, actually - "

_Succu_ bi, Sam automatically thought, but he didn't correct Dean out loud. His eyes were still closed, and the loud, throaty purr of the Impala's engine was settling into his bones.

" - and that wasn't even where things got weird, lemme tell you. One of 'em was working as a waitress at this greasy little bar right across from the motel where we were staying, and, obviously, I didn't know she was a soul-sucking sex-vampire whore. I just knew that she really seemed to like me, and she had a really gorgeous - "

Sam rested his head against the window, the glass of which was already starting to heat up as the early-morning rays of sunlight hit it. He wondered, idly, what Jess was doing. Weekends were usually the days both of them sat down together and did their homework, and she had a lot of it in her nursing program. Sometimes, he was even able to help her, though it usually led to her asking half-joking questions about why on Earth he thought it was a good idea to sterilize a wound with whiskey or sew it up with dental floss.

Or maybe she'd gone shopping. They were out of milk.

" - so, next thing I know, I wake up in some abandoned warehouse or something, and me and Dad are both tied to these huge freaking beds. Then the waitress shows up, and a couple other of the best-looking girls you've ever seen, and...they..." He trailed off for a second, and when he spoke again, his near-desperate, hyper-friendly tone had been replaced by something more commanding, more serious. "Hey. Dude. Are you even listening to me?"

Sam heard a rustle of fabric as Dean reached out to grab his shoulder or something, hesitated, and then pulled back without touching him. He opened his eyes a crack, feeling irritated, but not really angry. Not anymore. Maybe he was just tired.

"Uh-huh," he said, proud of himself for sounding so bored. "You banged a bunch of random succubi. Good for you."

Through the crack between his eyelids, he saw Dean's face redden slightly, especially the tips of his ears. He turned his attention back to the road, shoulders hunched, and Sam couldn't tell if he was angry, embarrassed, or hurt. He felt a sudden rush of guilt, even though he wished he didn't.

"Wasn't really the point of the story," he muttered, so low that Sam could barely hear him. "...besides. I didn't really...there weren't that many. People that I did that sort of thing with, I mean." He glanced at Sam out of the corner of his eye, and swallowed awkwardly. "Tried to keep it to a minimum. Y'know."

When Sam didn't say anything, he exhaled loudly through his nose, still keeping his eyes fixed straight ahead.

"You could talk to me, you know," he suggested.

"I don't really feel like talking."

Dean allowed a few seconds of blessed silence, just staring at the road with sunlight flashing off the hood of the Impala and lighting his eyes up in an impossible shade of green. Sam closed his eyes again (with his brother's eyes burned into his retinas and making him twitch with the effort of keeping himself under control), beginning to think that he'd be left alone for the rest of the trip. Until Dean, tone forcibly casual, said, "So. This girlfriend of yours."

Sam opened his eyes all the way, feeling every muscle in his jaw tighten, and forced himself to stay still and keep his voice steady.

"I especially don't feel like talking about her," he answered through gritted teeth.

"Okay, simmer down," Dean said lightly. "I just...didn't know you were into girls. That's all."

Sam clenched his jaw just a little harder, and one of his teeth, near the front, started to ache. A revenant had punched him in the face when he was thirteen, knocked the tooth out in the middle of a graveyard. His father hadn't been too terribly impressed that he'd actually managed to find the tooth and pack it in Maine snow to preserve it. He'd told him losing a tooth wasn't a big deal, and then fallen into bed after what was probably too many shots of whiskey. Dean, on the other hand, had dug the keys out of the pocket of Dad's jeans, herded a shell-shocked and bloody-mouthed Sam out to the Impala, and driven him to the only dentist's office in the tri-state area that was equipped to handle late-night emergencies. Several hours later, when Sam was too full of Novocaine to even so much as worry about what anyone watching might think (much less how they were going to pay for this), he practically fell against the lean form of his older brother and mumbled a very heartfelt thank-you through a mouth full of cotton and plaster. He didn't remember much after that - a hand ruffling his hair, a brilliant smile, and Dean's voice telling him that, well, he sure as hell wasn't gonna content himself to kiss someone looked like some sort of gap-toothed hillbilly freak.

His mouth had hurt. Dean had held him.

He violently shoved that memory our of his head. Comebacks immediately filed the space it had occupied - Dean didn't know he was into girls because he'd never allowed him to have a normal, healthy relationship, Dean had never once asked about his sexuality even once he got old enough to know which way he swung (there had been one talk - he decided it didn't count), every girl he came across had thought he was too much of a freak for him to get close enough to her to find out if he was "into" her kind. Because of Dean.

What he said instead was, "There's a lot of things you don't know about me."

And that bought Sam complete silence and tension so thick you could have cut it with an illegal Japanese-made hunting knife for the next hour or so. He decided he would take what he could get and closed his eyes, resting. He didn't actually sleep, not with his brother next to him. He trusted Dean about as far as he could throw him when it came to not taking advantage of him, and, while it might be entertaining to test just how far that was, he would rather not wake up with a hand down his pants. He'd barely managed to fiercely think away at least part of his erection, and he didn't want to be flying at full mast when Dean could so easily notice.

After that hour was up, Dean whipped the Impala into the parking lot of what must have been the only convenience store within a hundred-mile radius, simultaneously jerking Sam out of his doze, making him bang his kneecaps on the underside of the dashboard, and very nearly giving him a heart attack. He guided the car into an empty parking space, moving as smoothly as possible, and ignored the fact that Sam's knuckles were going white as, breathing hard, he gripped the door handle and the center console with all the strength he had.

"You're looking a little strung out there," Dean noted cheerfully, throwing open his door and climbing out into blinding sunshine. He leaned down and shot Sam a dazzling grin before he headed inside. "I'll make yours a decaf."

"You," Sam said, letting go and flopping back against his seat, "are a maniac."

Dean's grin widened.

"And you love it, Sammy-boy."

The moment - if it had even been long enough to be called that - dissolved with Dean's use of the nickname, and the good-natured glare that Sam had been leveling at him sharpened into something much more acidic. He turned away, upper lip curling in disgust that was as much for himself as it was for his brother, as Dean slammed the door with a muttered, "Sorry," and rushed inside. His cock rose to its full length again, unbidden, right after he heard that nickname, and he hated himself so much for it that he was glad the sun-heated glass of the window burned his forehead when he leaned against it.

Dean was back, avoiding eye contact, in just under ten minutes, with a pretty large paper bag and two Styrofoam cups. Sam didn't know what was in the bag, but the grease spots already appearing on it made his empty stomach roll uncomfortably. He caught the smell of almost-coffee, completely black, coming from the cup that Dean kept for himself when he shoved one at him. Without thinking, Sam took a sip, then slowly lowered the cup from his mouth and stared at it, surprised.

"You - "

"Yeah, I remember how you like it," Dean said, starting the engine. "Totally ruined. With vanilla and cream and all sorts of girly crap in there."

Sam stared at him, because that was how he liked his coffee. Jess even made fun of him for it, always asking if he wanted coffee with his cream and sugar, but he couldn't help it. He didn't remember when he'd first had the stuff, but he'd never liked the way it tasted. The effects of caffeine might be necessary. The bitter, rancid taste, as far as he was concerned, was not.

Dean knew how he liked his coffee, remembered that tiny, inconsequential detail about him.

He wasn't quite sure how that made him feel.

"Thanks," he said quietly.

"Don't mention it."

______________________________________________________________

Colonel Jacob P. Moon was perfectly aware he was dead, and quite comfortable with that fact.

He was almost certain that his current state of being had come about during a fire. He knew his name, his blood type (A positive), and his religion (Methodist), because it was engraved in his dog tags. He knew his rank because there were three others who called him by it. He wasn't quite sure whose military they'd belonged to, though. Hopefully one of the good guys.

The other three were Elias P. Nakota (Blood type: O positive, religion: Baptist), Robert L. Dawson (Blood type: AB negative, religion: Catholic), and Dog Tag, so named because he hadn't been wearing his when he died and no one had any idea who was, least of all him. They reminded Colonel Moon who he was, and he kept them in line, and that worked pretty well for a pretty long time.

Until the day _she_ showed up.

She glided into the base without anyone noticing, and found Colonel Moon in a room that may have very well once been his office. He was looking down, examining his tags, when she shoved the closed door open without touching it and strode in to stand right in front of his desk. He looked up, blinked at her slowly, and demanded, "Just who the hell - and _what_ the hell - are you?"

At first glance, she was human, and she was alive (which would have meant that he had absolutely no beef with her whatsoever). She was also a man, but Colonel Moon barely needed to look at her for more than a second to figure out that there was something else going on there. The male, human face - it looked familiar to him, oddly enough - was transparent, superimposed over a second face inside the body. One that was almost skeletal, eye sockets empty except for roiling black smoke, and colorless skin crossed with so many bloodless open wounds and half-healed scars that the shape was barely even recognizable as female. More black smoke dribbled from those cuts, and wreathed the bald head that lay underneath a transparent layer of thick brown hair, making amorphous shapes that made him think of sheep horns. Her lips were gone, and that same smoke filled her mouth. Her body was a withered, underdeveloped thing, just as pale and scarred as her face, and it was curled into a fetal position inside the transparent chest of her vessel. Black smoke flowed out of her wounds and twisted through the limbs, which he guessed gave her complete control.

" _What_ the hell am I?" she asked. Colonel Moon found it hard to focus on her voice, which underlay the unmistakably-male voice of the human she was curled up inside. "Colonel. Do you believe in demons?"

He wasn't sure what he'd believed in when he was alive, but right now, looking at what was standing, tucked inside a living, breathing man, in front of him, his answer was a resounding, "Yes." Being dead, he wasn't too intimidated, though. So he leaned back in his chair, being careful not to go through it, crossed his arms across his non-corporeal chest, and asked, "What are you doing here?"

She spread her hands helplessly, and her palms were filled with coiling black smoke underneath the translucent flesh.

"I just want to have a little fun," she whispered.

Colonel Moon couldn't remember ever liking anything less than he liked the way that that sounded, but, as it turned out, he didn't have much choice in the matter.


	4. Chapter Four

Standing on ratty carpet that had probably been green at some point in the sixties, Dean crossed one ankle behind the other and leaned his elbows on the desk, and passed the least-suspicious of his credit cards to the check-in girl with two fingers and a smile. She had pink hair, which was most definitely not something he usually went for, and looked like she couldn't be a day over sixteen. Still, it never hurt to get into an employee's good books. Especially when you were staying someplace like the Cholla Motel, where most of the doors didn't actually seem to have locks on them anymore.

The girl smiled back, revealing braces - _Yeah, not even going to touch that_ \- with rubber bands the exact same shade of pink as her hair. After swiping Dean's card, she gave it back to him, and tapped idly at the dinosaur of a computer in front of her.

"So. One room, two beds?" she asked, more perky than anyone working someplace like this had a right to be.

"Yeah - " Dean began amiably, at the same time that Sam, who had been standing at the other end of the minuscule lobby and examining a fake plant, spun around with a plaintive, "What? No."

The girl blinked, clearly confused, and Dean straightened up with a very deep sigh threatening to tear its way out of him. He glanced back at Sam, who, obviously embarrassed, avoided his eyes.

"Give us a minute," he told the girl, before crossing the room with a few long strides. He almost crowded Sam into the corner that held the fake plant, in an effort to both keep the coming conversation private and be as close to him as possible, before realizing that that just might get him punched in the face. Lowering his voice to a raspy growl, he asked, "What's wrong with you?"

Sam looked away, a brooding expression on his face and the muscles of his jaw flexing.

"I'm...not comfortable sharing a room," he said quietly.

Dean made a split-second decision not to push him or tease him, not to test whatever fragile pace they'd manged to achieve on the way here. It was a far cry from what had been between them two years ago, from what he wanted, but at least Sam wasn't intentionally trying to hurt him anymore. And he could sense that he'd calmed down, gotten his emotions under control. He still didn't understand where all the hate and anger directed at him had come from, but it had ebbed for the moment, and he didn't want to ruin that. So he kept the hundred smartass comments that immediately popped into his head to himself, despite how much it hurt to know that Sam couldn't bring himself to sleep in the same room as him. He remembered when Sam couldn't even get to sleep without being in the same bed with him, either hugging him close or letting himself be held so he wouldn't be alone for even a second.

Just because he wasn't going to push him didn't mean he was going to pay for a second room, though.

"Okay," he said agreeably. "You can sleep in the car."

Sam blinked big hazel eyes at him, shocked, and Dean wanted to pull him down to his level and kiss away that shock, cute as it might be.

"Just try not to touch anything any more than you have to," he added, talking to take his mind off something he just wasn't allowed to do right now. "She's in mint condition, and I'd kill to keep her that way."

"I'm not sleeping in the car," Sam snapped at him. "Dude, just...get another room..."

"Safer just to get one." Dean tapped the pocket that held his wallet, and, therefore, his stash of illegitimate credit cards. "The less money we spend, the less red flags go up at Visa."

He didn't reply, just shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans and turned away slightly with a heavy, resigned, "I-can't-even-believe-this-is-my-life" sigh. Because he didn't seem inclined to argue further, Dean almost felt like giving into him. But, no, it had to be just one room. That was one of Dad's rules, one he'd believed in fiercely enough to keep enforcing it even after he found out what his sons were getting up to in the bed they shared.

"I'll stay on my side of the room," Dean said, his voice as gentle as he dared to make it. "Promise."

"'Kay." Sam had the look of someone who wished they were somewhere, _anywhere_ else than their current location. He didn't really blame him for not fighting harder, even though, he could tell, he really didn't want to do this. It'd been a long day spent almost entirely in the Impala, they were both tired, and no closer to finding Dad. Sam had called the local hospitals, looking for a guy in the ICU or the morgue who matched their dad's description, but hadn't turned up anything. Which, as far as Dean was concerned, basically just meant that he was either too badly hurt to get help for himself or lying dead someplace no one would stumble upon his body.

He raised a hand to slap his brother reassuringly on the shoulder, remembered Sam's earlier adamancy about not being touched, and just gave him a smile he hoped was apologetic instead. After getting the room key and digging their bags out of the back seat of the car, Dean led the way into a surprisingly-spacious, cactus-themed room. A flimsy-looking divider separated a tiny dining area from two queen-sized beds, placed disconcertingly close together, a TV, and a closed door that, most likely, led into a bathroom.

_It looks just like that place in Oklahoma. Summer of eighty-eight._

Dean surprised himself with the thought, mostly because it'd been so long ago. But, yeah, the room's layout was exactly the same as the one they'd stayed in while Sam started kindergarten and he started fourth grade.

 _Oh._ Sam's first day of school. Mud on his clothes, backpack missing, tiny little sobs of pain and fear bouncing off walls that had been arranged exactly like these.

Yeah. He remembered that.

Sam dumped his backpack on the bed that was closer to the door and then dropped into one of the chairs at the tiny table. He pulled out his cell phone, dialing, and by the way his face lit up when someone on the other end answered, Dean guessed that he'd called his girlfriend. The blonde. He felt a momentary stab of vindictive satisfaction when he realized that Sam's expression for her wasn't laced with quite the same enthusiasm as the look he'd get on his face when he saw him, back when things still made sense. It was a tiny, pathetic victory, but a victory nonetheless.

It took him about ten seconds to figure out that their conversation wasn't going to be very interesting ("We got here safe, we're in a motel. No, I'm fine, don't worry...Yeah, he's fine, too...how are you? Are you done with that diagram of the circulatory system yet?"). He laid out flat on the bed that Sam hadn't claimed, the muscles of his back and arms hurting in the best possible way as he stretched them after a long day of driving.

_Oklahoma._

_Summer of eighty-eight._

_Sammy's first day of school._

For some reason, brushing shallowly against that memory like he'd been doing just wasn't shaking it. Some part of him wanted to relive it, so he sighed and laced his fingers together behind his head, closing his eyes. He really wasn't looking forward to the first three quarters or so of this, but everything that came after that...he could live with.

**Mid-August, 1988**

The kindergarten was closer to the motel they were staying at than the elementary school, which Dean had mixed feelings about. On one hand, he could walk Sammy to school in the mornings, without having to worry about him going the last few blocks alone or having to double back after dropping him off. And that was nice. But, on the other hand, Dad had decided, before he left, that Sam could have the key to the room and walk home on his own. He was starting school, five years old, and it was Dad's opinion that that was old enough to start doing some stuff without his brother.

Dean just wasn't comfortable with that, though he'd never disobey Dad's orders where he could see him. Which was why he had walked Sammy right up to the door of his new school this morning, checked that he had everything he needed - backpack, crayons, blanket, notebook; all of about the same low quality as the few supplies Dean himself had - and told him to wait for him after school. He estimated that it would only take him about five minutes to get over here, if he hurried.

The first day of school, for him, was pretty much exactly like it had been last year, and the year before that, and how he was begging to expect it to be for the rest of his academic career. His teacher, whose name he didn't even bother to learn because they'd be leaving soon, didn't like him. He didn't have most of the supplies he needed, he'd missed a lot of school last year during a hunt involving a nixie and so wasn't too great at multiplication, and his dad hadn't come to the mandatory parents' meeting before school started (Dean thought about telling them that he hadn't come because he'd been digging up a grave that, funnily enough, actually contained the wrong bones, then realized that that would probably go over like a ton of bricks and get him sent to the principal's office). The other kids didn't like him. He didn't want to make friends (he'd have to leave them, and, besides, he didn't actually need any friends, he had Sammy), his clothes were all secondhand, and one pocket of his beat-up black backpack was filled with rock salt and iron nails. A bit of which spilled on the floor during art class.

Dean didn't care. All he could think about was his little brother. He really wondered what and how he was doing - he thought that Sam was probably a lot smarter than him, and he'd been looking forward to school. He just wanted the final bell to ring so he could pick up Sammy and they could go home, hop up onto the bed they were sharing, talk about his day and hopefully touch each other in all the amazing ways they'd found over the last two years.

He just hoped Sam did what he'd told him to. He couldn't shake images of something with claws and fangs and red eyes snatching him right off the sidewalk as he walked home, or a hulking, inhuman figure waiting just inside the room and picking him up by his silky brown hair the second he came inside. Making him scream in pain and kick wildly and cry out for his big brother, who wouldn't get there in time.

Ironically enough, none of his "worst-case-scenario" fantasies included any humans besides Sammy. He was just a little boy, the ideal target for a certain type of person, but Dean was pretty sure that Sam could handle any purebred homo sapiens.

Dean was the first one out of the classroom when the bell rang, thrusting his arms through the straps of his backpack and feeling it smack home on his shoulder blades. He was sure that people were giving him weird looks as he jogged the whole way to the kindergarten, going faster than a normal kid would on his way home from school, but at nine, he was already getting used to strange stares and people whispering behind his back. He slowed down when he saw the wire fence around the building he had dropped Sammy off at this morning and the double doors that led into it.

Sam wasn't there.

 _Calm down,_ Dean told himself, even as his heart went from zero to a hundred in a second flat and his adrenaline levels skyrocketed. _I'm sure he's just around back._

He looked, kicking up a spray of wood chips as he charged around the building and into the playground area. There were a couple kids there, messing around, but one had red hair and one was a girl. Not Sam.

Someone must have spotted him running around like a lunatic out there, because one of the doors of the school creaked open behind him. Dean turned to see a woman - probably a teacher - walking towards him. He stayed where he was, let her approach him, even though his heart was still hammering against his ribcage and the need to find his baby brother and make sure he was all right got more powerful every second.

"Can I help you?" the woman asked, in a tone of voice that made it very clear that she would do anything at all to get rid of him. She wasn't the kind of woman Dad ran off with every once in awhile, the kind Dean was most familiar with and not terribly impressed by. Her shirt covered most of her chest and all of her stomach, so he figured he could trust her.

"I'm looking for my little brother," he explained reluctantly. "Sammy Winchester. 'Bout yea high - " He demonstrated, putting a hand at chest level on himself. " - long brown hair, red backpack."

"Oh." Her unsympathetic borderline-glare softened. "Are you Dean? You must be. Sam went home early."

He barely even wondered why she'd known his name. He zeroed in on that last sentence, blankly asking, "What?"

"He didn't want to stay, after what happened, and I didn't blame him. He said he could walk home, your father would be there - "

Dean was off like a bullet out of a gun before she even finished talking, getting back to the motel the one and only thing on his mind. He didn't stop to demand just what the hell'd happened, to make Sammy lie like that and leave school. He was furious, and sick with guilt, and, most of all, terrified.

**Mid-September, 2005**

"We still have some daylight left. We should probably try and take advantage of it."

Sam's voice, reasonable and calm and wholly dispassionate, brought Dean out of the light doze he'd slipped into. Realizing that the drone of the one-sided phone conversation had stopped and Sam was talking to him, he forced himself into a sitting position with a loud groan, scrubbing a hand across his eyes. He'd always hated sleeping in the daytime, hated how it made him feel sluggish and completely off his game for hours after and how it just completely went against every human instinct he had. Sometimes, though, the day was the only safe time to sleep.

"Whaddaya mean?" Dean slurred, blinking back exhaustion and a memory that had transitioned into dream format halfway through.

"This place doesn't have wi-fi. I'm going to head to the local library, find out what I can about this Army base from the internet and the old newspapers," Sam said, looking away and rubbing a hand up through his hair.

Dean, having regained control of most of his brain, grinned widely. He had missed Sam's input, his affinity for the job, and the working partnership they'd just been starting to develop when he'd left; more than he cared to admit. Not to mention the fact that he absolutely loved that brooding, serious expression he got on his face whenever he got really into whatever he was researching. That always prompted gentle kisses running down the back of his neck, then hands gripping his hips hard enough to leave bruises, then Dean growling the filthiest things he could think of into his ear in increasingly-desperate efforts to get him away from the books and into bed.

He got a grip on himself when he realized that Sam was almost certainly going to make that face soon, and he couldn't touch him when he did.

"Kinda like riding a bike, isn't it?" he asked approvingly. Sam just shook his head slightly, looking distant.

"You can talk to people around town while I'm at the library," he said, heading for the door. "Use one of those fake badges Dad made."

Dean wasn't anywhere near as stupid as most of his teachers had assumed he was, and it only took him about a second to realize that this was almost wholly an excuse for Sam to get away from him. He did his best to pretend it didn't hurt as much as it actually did as he pushed himself to his feet and raised his eyebrows.

"Interrogation really works better with two men, Sammy," he said, and the nickname was out before he could even stop it.

Sam stopped dead, slowly turning to face him. And, for a second, Dean thought he saw something a whole lot softer than the usual hatred and disgust in his eyes, something wounded and shy and loving that reminded him of the best times they'd had together, something that hurt and wanted just as much as he did. But he must have imagined it, because, in a deadly-calm voice that was seething with rage under the surface, his brother snapped out, "It's 'Sam,' Dean. Just 'Sam.' 'Sammy' was the twelve-year-old who spread 'em for you every time you told him to because he didn't know any better."

Dean wished that he'd just start kicking him between the legs or something instead of saying these things, because, honestly, that would probably hurt less. He hated his dick brother for taking away the one thing in his life that wasn't horrifying or fleeting or dull inevitable, and he hated himself for not having the balls to grab Sam and throw him against the wall as hard as he could. He wasn't sure what he'd do with him once he was there, though. If he'd hit him until he bled or kiss him until he was gasping for air.

"I'm sorry." And he was, but only that he still felt so much for him when it obviously wasn't returned. So he could keep stabbing at him and watching him bleed and there wasn't a damn thing he could do about it.

All he could do was follow him out, wanting to reach out and hold him and make that soft thing come back, knowing he couldn't, trying to content himself with remembering when he could.

**Mid-August, 1988**

When Dean burst through the unlocked door of the motel room, he expected a pack of werewolves to charge, snarling, at him. A contingent of revenants to fall on his skull with a chorus of moans, Black Dogs to look up from his brother's mangled body and howl mournfully. But nothing like that greeted him. What he got instead was a seemingly-empty room and the quiet, shaky snuffles of a five-year-old who knew he wasn't supposed to cry but had been pushed way too far to be able help it.

All of his aggression drained away even as the crying abruptly stopped, the opening of the door apparently startling its source into silence. He closed the door quietly behind him, stepping into the room and softly calling, "Sammy?"

There was no response for a couple of seconds, and then a tiny, broken voice that he could barely even associate with his bright, upbeat little brother timidly asked, "Dean?"

He walked into the room, past the little dining area and right up next to their bed, the one closest to the door. Sammy was sitting on the floor on the other side of it, legs drawn up to his chest and face resting against his knees. When Dean approached, he raised his head, and Dean's stomach dropped into his sneakers. There was something thick and dark in his hair, on his clothes, spattered across his face, and there wasn't enough light in the room to tell if it was mud or blood or something worse. One of his eyes was almost swollen shut, and he looked utterly miserable.

"Oh, my God." Dropping into a crouch right in front of Sammy, Dean automatically reached for him, demanding, "What the hell happened?"

Sammy didn't immediately move towards him, like he expected him to. He just pressed his face against his knees again, squeezing fistfuls of his too-big jeans with his small hands. He muttered something about being called a freak during recess by some bigger boys, getting the words out between tiny, hiccupy sobs. They said his clothes were weird, he talked funny, he was a know-it-all and a shrimp and a bunch of other names he didn't feel like repeating. He'd done his best not to react, and that made them mad. When they pushed him into the mud, he fought back, and that made them madder. When he'd gone inside with a black eye and a split lip, he hadn't told his teacher who'd done it because (his childish reasoning came into play here) he figured he had enough problems without being labeled a snitch or a crybaby. And then he came home.

Finishing up his story, Sammy started crying again, in earnest. Dean felt like a pot ready to boil over, so furious he could hardly think straight. He wanted to track down the kids who had done this, make them hurt like they had made Sammy hurt. He didn't care that they were just kindergarteners. He was madder than he could ever remember being in his entire life, and the only thing that kept him from jumping to his feet and heading out to mete out a little justice was the urge to comfort his brother. And the knowledge that revenge probably wasn't the best way to do that.

He knelt, legs spread wide to give Sam room to get right up against him, and opened his arms again. This time, Sammy immediately took him up on the unspoken offer, pushing away from the bed and pressing himself against Dean with a heartbreaking little sound of comfort. He clutched his shirt, sobbing into his chest as Dean put his arms around him and held him as tight as he could without hurting him. He stroked Sammy's hair with one hand, rubbing soothingly between his shoulder blades with the other, and knew that he'd made the right decision, staying here and doing this. Sam didn't hate like he did, didn't get nearly as angry, hadn't had the concept of revenge drummed into him by Dad. He was a little kid who'd just had his very first taste of how the world and almost everyone in it was gonna try to hurt him, and being held while he cried out all his shock and pain was probably better for him than getting back at the guys who pushed him down and called him names.

Dean was too young to think about it now, but, years later, he would realize that Sam didn't even remember them. The only guy who stuck out in his memory of that time was the one who'd come rushing home to touch and talk softly and make everything better.

"Shh, shh, Sammy," Dean murmured. "It's okay. It's gonna be okay." He stood up, pulling Sammy to his feet, too, and keeping his arms loosely around him. "C'mon. Let's get you cleaned up."

He led him to the bathroom, undressing him while he sniffled and wiped embarrassedly at his eyes, then stripped himself without a second thought. They'd been showering together for as long as he could remember. It saved time, and Dad always seemed happy that he didn't have to help Sam wash his hair or whatever.

Leaving their clothes on the bathroom floor, Dean turned on the water, then guided his little brother under the hot spray before following him. He kept his hands above both their waists, just focusing on washing the mud out of Sammy's hair and off his face, letting him lean against him for support as he dabbed at every new bruise and minor cut he found on him. He was pretty sure that most of them hadn't actually come from today, but it still made him mad. He did his best to hide that, making Sammy tilt his head back so he wouldn't get soap in his eyes, smiling reassuringly as, slowly, he stopped crying. When all the soap had been washed out of his hair and off his skin, he sat down, looking exhausted. Dean was just getting ready to hustle him out of the shower and into bed when he looked up at him and asked, "Why aren't we normal?"

Dean blinked. "What?"

"How come we don't have a house like everyone else does? Or a mom?" Sam seemed oblivious when Dean flinched at the vague mention of their mother. "And Dad's never home, and he always tells you to take care of me, and you and him always put salt in the windows and in front of the door whenever we stay someplace."

He took a deep breath of the steamy air, crouching down so they were on the same level, more or less. He hadn't been expecting this question, but he knew that he probably should have been. As adamant as Dad was about keeping Sammy in the dark about what exactly he did, and as much as Dean agreed with him, the kid wasn't stupid. They were going to have to explain everything to him sooner or later, but...not now. Instead of telling the truth or thinking up some elaborate lie, Dean reached out to cup his face with one hand, noting that his eye was less swollen now.

"I don't know," he said softly, shaking his head. "But, y'know, this _is_ normal, for us...and it could be a whole lot worse." He reached out with his other hand and pulled Sammy closer. "You're not a freak. They were just assholes."

"I'm not normal," Sam protested weakly.

"Fine. Then you're _my_ freak." Hesitantly, Dean leaned down, and planted a quick, shy kiss on his brother's forehead. Kissing was okay, right? Kissing just meant love. And Sammy seemed to like it, judging by the way his eyes fluttered closed and he moved so that his bare chest pressed against Dean's. "And I don't care if you're not normal."

He knew what he wanted to do, and, heart beating fast, he kissed Sammy on the lips. And pulled away just as quickly as he'd touched his mouth to his baby brother's, so that it was really more of a peck. Convincing himself that he was just showing him he loved him, and he wasn't doing anything wrong, he cupped the back of Sammy's head and kissed him again. He held it longer this time, closing his eyes and holding him tightly, feeling his confusion and excitement and pleasure. This was okay. Sammy kissed back, his movements clumsy but intimate enough to make Dean shiver under the spray of hot water. Dean wouldn't be embarrassed even if Dad walked in on them right now.

Actually, no, that was a lie. He would be extremely embarrassed, and terrified of his reaction. He didn't want their dad to see him and Sammy kissing, and he hadn't even wanted him to know about what they'd been doing with each other before now, and he wasn't sure why. That scared him.

But Dad wasn't here right now. Dean leaned back against the tiled wall, crossing his legs Indian-style, then pulled Sam up so he was sitting in his lap. His legs wrapped automatically around his waist, and he braced his hands against his chest while Dean held him. Dean hesitated before kissing him again, unable to stop himself from thinking about actual, man-and-woman couples he'd seen, doing this, Dad with whatever woman he was about to disappear with until the morning. Love that wasn't exactly...brotherly. His grip on Sammy loosened, and, for the first time, he felt doubt about what they were doing. He wasn't sure it actually was okay.

"Ready to get out?" Dean asked, his uncertainty fueling the question. Sammy shook his head, leaning in to clumsily press his mouth against his older brother's, begging for deeper contact without saying a word. And that was enough to completely get rid of any inhibitions Dean had. At least, for the moment.

He kissed back, grip tightening again, and trailed his mouth down onto Sammy's neck, his chest, kissing down onto his stomach and making him giggle. Dean didn't protest when he took one hand off his chest and reached down between them, to gently run a hand over his cock, and returned the favor as soon as he started to stiffen. Keeping Sam as close as he could, he kissed him again, moaning a little against his mouth, and didn't break away until he did.

"You like this?" Dean asked, breathing heavily, pleasure shooting through his body and every part of him begging for more. Sammy, hands still on his brother's cock and doing exactly what he'd learned would feel best for him, nodded. He probably had no idea that Dean was just doing what felt good, what some instinct behind the pleasure urged him to, and that he'd stop in a second if he thought that Sammy wasn't enjoying it as much as he was.

He still wasn't sure about this anymore. But they'd already started; he saw no harm in finishing up.

Hours later, when they had both finished with each other, cleaned up a second time, and toweled off, Dean lay tangled together with Sammy. Their arms were wrapped around each other, their legs crossed over one another's, and Sam's head, hair still damp, rested on his chest. He sighed in contentment, burrowing a little deeper into him, and Dean closed his eyes.

"Do I have to go back to school tomorrow?" Sammy asked sleepily. Dean opened his eyes; he'd thought he'd fallen asleep.

"Yeah." He paused. "I'm sorry."

"...will you come with me?"

"I'm sorry, Sammy. I don't think I can."

"Oh." He sounded disappointed, but not surprised. "Will you come and get me after school?"

"'Course I will."

"And you'll stay with me?"

"Yeah."

"Always?"

"Yeah." Dean didn't even hesitate for a second before saying it. "Always. I promise." He nuzzled into his damp hair. "Whether you want me to or not."


	5. Chapter Five

Sam grimaced down at the badge that Dean had just slapped into his hand, going out of his way not to accidentally touch him. He would have almost appreciated how careful he was not to so much as brush his fingers against his, if he hadn't done it in an over-exaggerated way that was probably meant to make him feel like an idiot. But he decided against flipping out at Dean again, because, this time, he hadn't really crossed any of the lines Sam had been drawing.

"This doesn't even look like me," he complained, surprised at how normal his voice came out. Like the awkward walk to the car after his response to Dean's (almost certainly accidental) use of his nickname hadn't just happened. "When did you even make it?"

"Dad made it right before you, uh, went on shore leave," Dean replied, glossing over what Sam couldn't believe had already become an awkward subject. "Same as my first set. Which, by the way, got updated a couple weeks back. Did it myself."

He held up what Sam, after a few seconds of examination, realized was a federal marshal's badge. It featured a picture of Dean with respectably-combed hair and a bored, heavy-lidded expression. It also said that his last name was Walsh.

"You never got to use yours, though," he added, shoving the badge into a pocket of his jacket. "Dad wanted to get rid of 'em, but I told him that you'd need them when you came back. He drew the line at updating the pictures, though, because...well, y'know, we didn't have any pictures of you after that one."

"Always wondered what he wanted that picture for," Sam muttered, looking at the image of himself two years ago, just barely twenty. His cheekbones had gotten more prominent since then, the rigid set of his shoulders had relaxed a little, and (he almost rolled his eyes at the ridiculously short cut he was sporting in the photo) his hair had grown out. And that hurt in his eyes, the anger and guilt and self-loathing that made his expression so stony...he'd learned how to lock that away.

Dean's casual, unfailing faith that he was going to come back someday bothered him. In a way he couldn't really identify. He could see him vividly, valiantly protecting fake badges with his little brother's picture on them, even after their father had long since lost his patience with the belief that they were gonna see him again. And it...hurt, like getting a bullet cut out of an infected wound or stretching a pulled muscle right after it healed. A good pain.

Sam shook those feelings out of his head, pocketing the badge reluctantly and resigning himself to flashing it at people, because he knew they didn't have the time to replace the picture with a more recent one. He rolled his shoulders, so his hoodie and the T-shirt underneath fell right on his torso, and stuffed his hands into his pockets.

"So," he said, taking a deep breath and then exhaling loudly. "What now?"

"Research, which you can be in charge of," Dean replied, pulling open the door of the Impala and dropping into the driver's seat. "I bet you're pretty good at stuff like this, by now."

Sam joined him, shutting the door and tucking his long legs up underneath the dashboard. "No terrorizing the townspeople?" There may have been more of an edge to his voice than was necessary.

"Not until we know which townspersons to terrorize," Dean said, starting the engine and pulling out. "Guess you're rustier than I thought, Sa...Sam." He paused, both of them completely ignoring his verbal stumble, then said, "'Townspersons.' Is that a word?"

Sam smiled before he could help it, glancing out the window to get a feel for Lake City. He found himself thinking that, maybe, they could do this. Like, really, actually do this - finish whatever hunt their father had been on, find him (or at least find out what'd happened to him) so they could get back to their lives, and treat each other like partners or normal brothers the whole time. Despite the fact that he still felt so much anger, directed at both himself and his brother, burning in his belly, stirring every time he looked at Dean, threatening to break through...he could deal with that. He was good at shoving down memories, emotions, stuff like that, and he could _make this work_. For his own sake, at least, so he didn't end up with a mouthful of broken teeth and two black eyes after lashing out at Dean one too many times...no matter how much he may deserve it.

The thought made him happier than he'd been since he figured out the guy he was wrestling in his apartment was Dean, and he felt a sudden urge to call Jess, tell her what he'd realized. But, obviously, he couldn't.

When Dean pulled up at the library, Sam immediately unfolded his lanky frame from the passenger side, his fragile hope that he could make it through this without another trauma-inducing confrontation giving him new energy. Dean walked beside him, keeping a comfortable distance, as they headed into the library, an old, squat, solid building that looked like it could have been part of the Army base they had come to research. It was bigger on the inside than he had expected, and they wandered aimlessly through the aisles, one of them secretly delighted by the vast number of books and the other cursing under his breath. They had made it through Fiction and Mythology before a librarian noticed them and came over to ask them if they needed any help, with the Look on her face.

The "Look" was something that Sam had silently named back when he was about seventeen. It varied from person to person, based on their upbringing, their religious alignment, and their opinion on certain...alternative lifestyles, but, basically, it was the expression most people got on their faces when they saw two guys together. And didn't know them well enough to see the similar shapes of their eyes and the similar cuts to their chins and all the other marks of familial resemblance. The "Oh-gosh-a-gay-couple" Look. Which Sam had always hated and feared, worrying that that expression would turn into one of realization and then disgust. Besides - he had never considered Dean his boyfriend, or anything like that.

Dean, on the other hand, hadn't really seemed to care. In fact, he'd almost seemed to welcome the Look, the proof that other people could tell that he and Sam belonged to each other completely. When he noticed his younger brother getting nervous or self-conscious, he'd put an arm around him, murmur encouragement into his ear...maybe even pull him into a kiss.

Sam forcibly ripped himself out of his thoughts, just in time to hear the librarian - Look still firmly in place - tell them that there was a room in the back where they could look at the microfilm that old editions of the local newspaper were stored on. She smiled when he politely thanked her, and the smile got a lot wider and turned into a blush when Dean gave her a suggestive grin and said she should meet him in that room after hours. Even though, in Sam's opinion, she really wasn't that attractive.

It got rid of the Look, at least. But it made Sam's stomach hurt, vaguely, with some pain he couldn't really identify the source of - not that he was sure he wanted to. He had a faint urge to smack Dean upside the head for flirting like that, right in front of him, but...why? Why did he feel this way? He wasn't _his_ anymore, he'd put an end to that and very nearly gotten rid of all the horrifically-unnatural feelings that came with it. He felt a sudden surge of desperate anger that, because they were in public, he quelled just as fast. _Goddammit._ This shouldn't be happening...but he had more important things to focus on than feeling a little possessive of the guy who was, for all intents and purposes, his ex.

"Microfilm," Dean muttered, watching Sam flip through the records and set up the scanner and viewing station with the air of a professional returning to his area of expertise after a long absence. He leaned against the door. "Jesus. I thought this was 2005 - I was sick of this stuff back in the nineties."

"What year was the base abandoned?" Sam asked, as if he hadn't spoken. He shrugged.

"Damned if I know."

"Okay..." _Wonder if he's finally pissed at me._ "Ah. 'Seventy-two to 'seventy-three. Let's just try this."

He got everything in order, working with the machines reminding him of his childhood more than he was comfortable with. The first image that popped up was one of the front page of a newspaper, dated January 24, 1972. Interestingly enough, eight years to the day before Dean was born, but he didn't feel like sharing that. Instead, he focused on the headline: _Friday Marks One-Year Anniversary of Devastating Base Fire._

"Huh."

"Well, that was sure convenient..."

Sitting down on one of the fragile-looking chairs that had been apparently banished to this room, resting his forearms on his thighs and clasping his hands together between his knees, Sam ignored the way that the back of his neck almost burned, with Dean so close behind and looking at him. He wanted to say something to him, make him cut it out...but, instead, began to read out loud: "'One year ago, this Friday, a fire broke out at the Fort MacArthur military base and destroyed many of the buildings before it could be contained. Among the lives claimed in the blaze were those of Private Elias Nakota, Private Robert Dawson, and Colonel Jake Moon. Last year, we interviewed Colonel Moon's widow, Rebecca Moon, who had just given birth to a son...'" He stopped, and looked back at Dean, feeling a little better once he could see that he hadn't moved. "Okay. This Rebecca woman seems like a good place to start. Maybe her husband's haunting the base or something."

"Yeah, let's go look her up. Make sure she's still alive." Dean pushed of the door, tugging it open and waiting for Sam to go first. When he passed him, reluctantly, he flashed him a grin that was almost vulnerable, eyes grateful and tentatively happy. "Great to have ya back."

Sam looked away and kept walking without a word.

\----------------------------------------------------------

The official residence of Rebecca Moon was a ramshackle, one-story house, yard dead and multiple red-gray shingles missing. The walkway leading up to the porch was cracked, and weathered duct tape criss-crossed several of the dusty windows. The burned-out shape of the base, surrounded by a rusting fence hung all over with anti-trespassing signs, was visible in the distance. Sam checked his pocket as he climbed out of the Impala, making sure the fake badge with its outdated picture was still there. It was, which made him feel marginally better. He squared his shoulders. He'd never actually done this before, flashed a badge that looked nearly real and talked his way into somebody's house. Sure, he'd lied about who and what he was before. All the time. Even to Jess. But the badge...well, that was different. He figured he just had to get past that initial lie, though, and then he'd be fine, because he knew how to handle witnesses. He knew exactly which questions to ask, how to read body language, when to push and when to hold back.

There was a slightly different element to it this time, sure. But, thinking about it, he realized that all of his concerns were pretty trivial.

"Are you sure we shouldn't've...I don't know...rented suits? Or something?" he asked, looking at the house as Dean locked the car and joined him.

"Nah. You only need suits if you're pretending to be FBI agents, or lawyers, or something like that," Dean assured him. "You don't have to dress up to be a marshal." Seeing Sam's slightly-skeptical expression, he shot him a quick smile. "Trust me on this. Me and Dad have got this whole thing down to a science."

He rapped sharply on the weathered door, which was just barely white in a few spots and the feathery gray of exposed wood everywhere else. Shoving his hands into the pockets of his jeans, he rocked back on his heels, and Sam touched his badge. Getting ready to pull it out. He heard footsteps on the other side of the door, boards creaking, and, just before it opened, Dean quietly said, "But, y'know, I think you'd look real good in a suit."

And then he had a comically-professional expression on his face as he whipped out his badge, saying "Good afternoon, ma'am, federal marshals, Walsh and Williams..." Sam copied his movements immediately, unable to respond to what he'd said. Or even figure out if he should be mad or not, because he had to look at who they'd be interrogating soon. He had to focus on the case, the job, so he could get home as soon as possible. Back to Jess, away from Dean.

The small, gray-haired woman who had answered the door was most definitely not what he had been expecting, after seeing how neglected her house was. Her gray hair was drawn back into a neat, precise bun, and her sharp features were outlined with a tasteful amount of makeup. He could tell she'd been pretty, really pretty, once, and thought of Jess for a second. Her pink blouse and gray skirt were crisp and clean, and the only thing that could even remotely mark her as the owner of the house she was in were the ragged sneakers on her feet. They looked like the sort of shoes someone would wear if they didn't plan on leaving the house that day but didn't want to go barefoot.

She peered at Dean with clear gray eyes, then Sam, frowning. Putting one hand on her hip, she asked, "You're here about Lucas?"

"Uh." Dean glanced at Sam; he reflexively looked away. "Who?"

"My son." Her mouth tightened slightly, but that was the only change in her expression. "He's been missing for two weeks."

"Okay. Well." Dean looked at Sam again, obviously searching for help, but Sam just couldn't return the eye contact. "We actually came to talk to you about your husband."

"Jake?" She raised an eyebrow. "He's been buried thirty-five years, gentlemen. Any crimes he was involved in - and, having known him, I don't imagine there were many - must not be worth investigating anymore."

"You'd be surprised," Dean told her, with a smile only Sam knew him well enough to tell was strained. "Can we come in?"

Mrs. Moon crossed her arms over her chest, regarding him with a very suspicious look as she said, "I don't think so."

Sam had the feeling they were about to get the cops called on them, which wasn't something he wanted to happen. And he just couldn't help the fact that, deep down, in some part of himself that was still five years old and clueless about proper boundaries between siblings, he hated seeing Dean squirm like this - especially when there was already so much pressure on him. So he spoke up, driven by something that felt like instinct born of nights sparring in graveyards and his dad running through the different types of ghosts with him and automatically lying to every teacher, friend, and school counselor he'd ever had about what his family situation was.

And being held so tightly when he was hurting, and waking up with all four of Dean's limbs wrapped comfortingly around him, and tender words right when he needed to hear them...but he did his best not to think about any of that. And told himself that the fluttering in his stomach was nausea, even though he knew it wasn't

"We know several people have disappeared around the base," he began, in the sympathetic, reasonable voice that he always used on Jess whenever they were having an argument. "We didn't know one of them was your son - and I'm sorry, because this has to be difficult for you. But we need to learn more about the base and the people who worked there, so we can figure out what's going on."

Mrs. Moon looked him up and down, but the blatant suspicion was gone. She stepped back, giving them just enough room to enter her house one-by-one, and grudgingly said, "All right. Come in, then."

Sam let Dean go first, mostly because he didn't trust him behind him, then followed him. Somewhere, in the back of his mind, he was aware that his gait and manner of moving changed when he stepped into the house. His movements became more fluid, the loud clomping of his bootsteps softening to something much quieter. He wasn't anywhere near silent - once you got to a certain size (which he was well past), that just wasn't feasible anymore. But still. He was walking like a hunter again.

The inside of Mrs. Moon's house was a whole lot like its owner: a stark contrast to the outside. Everything was extremely clean, neat, and well-kept, if dated. Sam observed vaguely-floral wallpaper, beige carpet that just might be the original, and bubble-like lighting fixtures. There were very few knickknacks besides what looked like a few family photos hanging on the walls, and all the furniture was compact and lightweight. He thought it looked like the home of someone who had to move often and had learned to be ready for it, though Mrs. Moon had to have lived here for over thirty years.

She led them out of the short, narrow hall that was the entryway, into what had to be the living room. Waving them towards a fuzzy-looking green couch, she shuffled a few feet in the direction of what looked like a small, open kitchen area.

"Can I get you anything?" she asked. Her tone was perfectly polite, but Sam got the feeling that she really didn't want to have to give them anything.

"No, we're fine. Thank you," he said with a quick smile, speaking before Dean could. He lowered himself onto the couch, which was really more like a loveseat; when his brother sat down next to him, their hips touched. Prompting a sudden explosion of silent anger inside Sam. He forced himself not to jump up and just stand, despite the fact that the contact sent lightning bolts through him. Even though there were two layers of denim between their bare skin. But he drew the line and moved his legs - the fact that they were in the company of a perfect stranger weighing heavily on his mind - when Dean splayed his knees so their thighs were pressed together. Maybe he'd done it on purpose, maybe he hadn't. All Sam knew was that a sudden, desperate need hit him - for deeper contact, for constant contact. And he clenched his jaw and leaned forward, hunched over to try and hide the raging hard-on he was pretty sure he'd be developing soon, hating, more than anything, that his body still reacted this way.

_Think about Jess, think about Jess...it's almost normal that way._

"So," Mrs. Moon started. "What do you want to know about Jake?"

She lowered herself into an armchair across from them, glancing at a framed, black-and-white picture on a nearby side table as she spoke. It featured a woman in her late teens or early twenties, whom Sam immediately recognized as a younger version of Mrs. Moon, beaming next to a tall, light-haired man with fine features and serious eyes. Almost certainly her late husband.

"Well, we know he died in a fire..." Dean began. Giving him a look that made it clear she still didn't like him, she nodded.

"That's right. We didn't even have a body to bury. There was nothing left."

 _Can't salt and burn the bones to get rid of the problem, then,_ Sam thought. He knew Dean was trying to catch his eye, to convey that he was thinking exactly the same thing, but he kept looking straight ahead. At the old woman across from him.

"Any idea what started it?" he asked, and she just shook her head.

"Faulty wiring...an unattended cigarette," she said. "Some stupid mistake. To be honest, I don't really care anymore."

Sam clasped his hands together and looked down at them, sighing through his nose. This line of questioning wasn't really getting them anywhere.

"How about you tell us about Lucas's disappearance?" he suggested, looking up. Mrs. Moon hesitated, looking at another picture on that same side table. This one was in color, of a man in his mid-thirties. He guessed that it was Lucas; he seemed to take after his mother. He had gray eyes, thick, dark-brown hair a few shades lighter than Sam's own, and a thin but strangely charming smile.

"He came to re-shingle the roof, two weeks ago," she replied slowly. "He brought his friend with him. Calvin. I'm old enough now that I can either take care of the inside of the house, take care of the outside, or let them both look mediocre. And I use the inside a lot more than I do the outside." ( _Ah,_ thought Sam, some part of him satisfied to have an explanation.) "Lucas helps when he can, and he always brings Calvin...they're such good friends. Very affectionate with each other. But, this time, they had a fight - I don't remember what it was about - and Lucas went down the road to get some more nails. He never came back." She paused. "The police found his car, abandoned, near the fence around the base. They just barely gave it back to me."

"And nothing else strange happened?" Sam asked.

"You didn't see anything...weird? Freaky?" Dean pressed. Mrs. Moon leaned back in her chair, considering.

"Well. Now that you mention it," she began carefully, "there was the oddest cloud in the sky that evening, right before Lucas left. It looked like black smoke."

\----------------------------------------------------------------

"Well...that was kinda useless," Dean muttered, hands in his pockets as he led the way down the cracked walkway and back to the Impala. "We learned...let's see, pretty much nothing. Except that there was some black smoke. What does black smoke signify, anyway? Isn't there some creature that looks like black smoke?"

Sam shrugged. A second after he did, he realized that Dean wouldn't have been able to see the gesture, with his back to him. But it didn't seem to matter.

" _Some_ thing does, I know it. I just can't put my finger on it." Dean stopped, just feet from the sidewalk, right next to Mrs. Moon's unattached garage. Sam stopped beside him, standing in the patchy dead grass because there wasn't really enough room for him to stand and be comfortable on the decaying concrete. "Gimme a minute here."

"She said the police gave Lucas's car back to her," Sam said, knowing he was breaking the near-complete silence Dean needed to think and not really caring. "Maybe there's something in there."

"Well...that it?" Dean nodded to a slightly-battered, forest-green Honda parked in the driveway, which was in about the same condition as the walkway. Sam had noticed it on the way in, but hadn't thought much about it. Looking closer now, he saw a bit of bright-yellow police tape caught in one of the doors. Like the car was evidence that had been returned after it was completely combed over. His first instinct was to go over, see if it was unlocked, start searching for clues if it was...but he hesitated. He wasn't sure he was okay with crawling around in the car of some poor old woman's missing son, especially when she'd been nothing but polite to them.

Dean, apparently, just didn't have the same inhibitions. He did a quick three-sixty, to make sure no one was nearby and Mrs. Moon wasn't looking out the window or something, then shrugged and made a beeline for the car when he saw the coast was clear, leaving Sam standing awkwardly in the grass. He watched as he tried the handle on the passenger side, then spun around with a wide grin when the door popped open.

"Bingo! Unlocked."

Suppressing a sigh, Sam joined him as he leaned in, sweeping one hand judiciously over the part of the dashboard he could reach and the other over the pale-gray seat. He looked underneath, muttering something derogatory towards modern cars under his breath, and Sam poked his head in to peer into the back seat. Suddenly, before he could react, Dean straightened slightly, and his back pressed against Sam's chest.

Both of them froze. Dean because he knew he'd done something he wasn't supposed to, probably (it was just a guess - Sam honestly couldn't care less what Dean was thinking right now). Sam because he'd _told_ him not to touch him, he didn't _want_ to be touched - and, yet, for some reason, he wasn't pulling away. Like he should. There was fabric between them - two T-shirts, his hoodie, Dean's jacket - but he could still feel the heat of his brother's body. True, the Nevada sun was beating down on him, starting to make him wish he'd opted for lighter clothing, but Dean's warmth was different. It went deeper, soothed aches he hadn't even known he had, made him _remember_. When this position - his chest against Dean's back - had been commonplace, especially as he got taller and developed a sudden fondness for hugging him from behind.

He could smell him, that leather-sweat-vanilla scent that used to mean home and love and comfort and a million other things he needed and couldn't find anywhere else. He wanted to wrap his arms around him, pull him up, bury his face in his short hair and just...hold him. Fit their bodies together and hope that he'd be able to find a cure for the agony that he'd somehow managed to ignore for more than two years.

And he might've, if his father's voice, angry and disgusted and shocked, hadn't exploded into his mind. Straight out of his memories.

 _For God's sake, don't_ touch _him like that -_

Sam jerked back, banging his head on the roof of the car as he did so, adrenaline flooding his system. Breathing hard, he closed his eyes tight for just a second and forced Jess into his head. Blonde hair, narrow waist, long legs...female, not related to him, safe. He could still feel the bumps of Dean's spine, a burning trail on his stomach.

Dean straightened up completely, glancing at him over his shoulder, but he didn't say anything. He turned his attention back to the car before Sam could tell what he was feeling from his expression. Was he pissed at him for acting like a brother should? Turned on by the contact? Or did he feel like Sam did, wanting him in a way that wasn't even entirely sexual and beating himself up inside for feeling something so twisted?

Sam told himself he didn't care (and was immediately irritated with Dean for the fact that it wasn't true), and moved around to the driver's side of the car, yanking the door open. He leaned in, planting one hand on the seat to support himself while he looked around, and, on a whim, flipped the sun visor down. He immediately regretted it. The distinctive smell of rotten eggs filled the interior of the car as a fine powder rained down into his hair, and he jerked back for the second time in as many minutes, shaking his head reflexively and squeezing his eyes shut so none of it would get in them.

"Oh, _crap_ \- " He swiped his hands through his hair, grimacing as his mind automatically jumped to conclusions about powdered snake venom and cocaine and poisonous pollen from some sort of plant monster.

"Whoa, hey. Calm down. You're okay." He heard a few rapid footsteps as Dean rushed over to stand in front of him. "What is it?"

Very reluctantly, Sam opened his eyes a crack, and looked down at the dust on his hands. It was yellow. He blinked, and the odor finally hit home, along with a realization that made dread settle into the pit of his stomach beside all the rage and hatred.

"Sulfur."

Dean exhaled heavily, crossing his arms over his chest and suddenly looking exhausted.

"Well, shit. It's a demon."

"Jesus," Sam said quietly, and meant it. He'd already suspected it, but hearing Dean say it just made it that much more real. "When's the last time we went after a demon?"

"I don't know." Dean reached up to unconsciously rub the back of his head. "I was...uh...like, nine, maybe? Or ten. Dad made us stay in the room with salt at every entrance - even gave us iron pokers. Just in case it got past the salt. God, he was really freaked out, which meant I was really freaked out, which...heh...meant _you_ were really freaked out, and...I..." He trailed off into awkward silence before Sam even had to say a word, the memory of what it had been like for them, locked in a motel room together...what they'd done...burning like acid in Sam's mind and making Dean's eyes glassy with sudden recollection. Out of the blue, he cleared his throat, the noise too loud and awkward. "They're rare. Seemed like even Dad didn't know too much about 'em, except that they're real nasty and hard to kill."

"Great," Sam muttered, brushing the sulfur on his hands off onto the thighs of his jeans. "Well..." He sighed deeply, turning towards the road and the Impala. "It's getting late. We'd better grab some dinner, head back to the motel, try to...sleep." He suppressed a grimace brought on by the thought of sleeping in the same room as Dean. "We can do more research tomorrow. I just don't really want to go up against this thing when we're tired and clueless."

"That's a plan I can get behind." Dean walked up beside him, half leading him to the car, half walking with him. "Wait a second, Sam...you've still got some sulfur in your hair..."

When he touched him, it was perfectly casual. Just running his fingers through the fringe of his hair to get the stinking powder out, fingertips barely even brushing his scalp - nothing sexual or suggestive about it at all. But parts of Sam were still reeling from the contact they'd had in Lucas's car, and memories of his father's opinion of their relationship were still at the forefront of his brain, and he honestly couldn't help it when he spun and shoved Dean away from him as hard as he could, a furious snarl ripping its way out of him before he could stop it.

Apparently, "as hard as he could" was pretty damn hard, because Dean all but flew backwards, landing on his ass almost ten feet away. Actual pain, as much physical as it was emotional, flickered across his face for a second, and he grunted, chest heaving like he'd had the wind knocked out of him. Sam's stomach dropped, all his searing, fiery emotions draining away as he realized that he'd gone too far. He took an automatic step forward, reaching out with both hands to maybe help him up or something, and he stumbled over the words as he blurted, "I - I'm sorr - "

He was cut off when Dean shot to his feet, hands curling into fists so tight his knuckles paled, expression thunderous. Sam froze, staring at him. He was trembling with what had to be rage, jaw set, eyes intense - and full of real, shocking, near-corporeal _hate_. He wanted to hurt him, just as bad as he could - that was painfully obvious. The realization was like a punch in the gut for Sam. Had this been what Dean saw when he looked at him last night? Today? Hostility so strong it could barely even be considered a human emotion?

Sam waited for the first blow to come, and, for a second, he was pretty sure he'd just stand there and take it. But Dean didn't move. He had to want to - hell, judging by the look on his face, he would like nothing better than to disembowel Sam with his fingernails. But he just stood there, shaking a little, hands clenched into fists, glaring and breathing hard and keeping his shoulders straight and square.

And then he just...relaxed. The tension seemed to go out of him - he opened his hands, his shoulders slumped. But the hatred didn't leave his eyes. Sam wondered if he hadn't wanted to start a fight on Mrs. Moon's front lawn, if he hadn't been able to bring himself to hit him...or if he had just decided that he wasn't worth it.

"I'm sorry," he said again, weakly, as Dean stalked over to the Impala and ripped open the door on the driver's side. He glanced up.

"I don't actually give a rat's ass if you're 'sorry' or not," he said, with a sharp, twisted smile just as hard as iron. "I just don't care, Sam. I just wanna finish this Goddamn case so you can run back to your school and your girlfriend and I never have to see your sorry ass again. And vice-versa."

With that, he ducked into the car, slamming the door hard enough to make the frame rattle. Sam stood numbly in the dead grass for a few seconds, then walked over, stiff-legged, and joined his brother. He looked at him out of the corners of his eyes as he started the engine with a blank expression on his face, and wanted to hate him. But the only feeling he could summon right now was a dull ache that went so deep inside of him, he wasn't even sure where it ended.


	6. Chapter Six

"Salt. Iron. Holy water...basically, what we knew already..." Sam murmured, tapping rapidly at the keyboard of his laptop and flicking his eyes over the screen scanning for the major points of the article he had pulled up, on a site that proudly touted itself as having information vital to any demon hunter, instead of actually reading the whole thing. He stayed skeptical (especially because the writing was so pompous and grimly self-important), cross-checking constantly with what he already knew, other sites, and what few relevant books the library had. He knew that Dean didn't like using the internet for research, and neither had their father, but, sometimes, it really was the best source. But he definitely understood to take most of what he read with a grain of salt - ever since he'd gone after a banshee with a silver knife after reading on Wikipedia that it was the only effective way to kill one and it...well, it hadn't worked. "We can trap it - which might not be a good idea, because holy water dries and salt can be blown or washed away - or drive it off. Hurt it so bad it doesn't want to stick around anymore." He looked up from the screen of his laptop, looking at Dean, who was sitting across from him with a copy of _The Golden Bough_ in front of him. Scowling characteristically at a page he hadn't turned for the past twenty minutes. He was a slow reader, but...he wasn't that slow, Sam knew. "Are you listening to me?"

"Yep. Trap the demon or drive it away," Dean drawled, tone emotionless and clipped. He rubbed a hand over his face. There were dark circles under his eyes; he looked exhausted, and extremely pissed in a smoldering, bottled-up sort of way. He'd led the way into the library, and the local crowd had quickly gotten right out of his way. Sam hadn't looked in a mirror since last night, but he was pretty sure that he didn't look much better. "Got it."

Sam's throat tightened...but he wasn't sure why. Dean was actually leaving him alone, like he'd wanted, and he should be ecstatic that he wasn't smiling tenderly at him or touching him or trying to engage him in conversation every five minutes. And he was happy, there was just...something else, too. He returned his attention to his laptop, closing his burning, stinging eyes for a second and pressing his fingertips against them. He felt like something was missing, like something he needed desperately was gone, and he didn't know what it was. But he _hated_ it.

_Well, hey, maybe I do know what it is, and I just don't wanna admit it to myself. Especially with him three feet away from me._

He crushed that thought, cringing a little because, maybe, it rang true. In some part of him. Propping his elbow on the fake-wood vinyl of the library table, Sam rested his forehead in his hand, automatically twisting his fingers through his hair. He told himself he only felt so weird because he'd had a rough night - dinner had been heavy and greasy, and, sitting across from a completely-silent Dean, he'd had to do his best not to gag, after spending two years with Jess and her health-food obsession (which, he realized, had now become _their_ health-food obsession). Dean had walked into their room when they got back to it, thrown himself down on the bed, and been out like a light - though he must have been faking it, at least part of the time, judging by those bags under his eyes. Sam hadn't been able to sleep...so he'd called Jess again.

"Hello?" She sounded sleepy when she answered. Sam felt a stab of guilt; he tried to remember if he was in a different timezone than her, if he might've woken her up.

"Hey. It's me," he said quietly, sitting at the foot of his bed. Something in him made him keep hi voice low, so he didn't wake Dean.

"Sam!" She perked up exponentially. "How are you? Did you find your dad?"

"Uh...no." He had almost forgotten that they were supposed to be looking for their father, that that took precedence over even solving the demon problem at the base. "I'm fine. How did your day go?"

"I miss you," Jess said. Her voice was troubled. "Sam...are you going to be able to get home before Monday?"

Oh...God. His interview. It had, unbelievably, slipped his mind. He heaved out a massive sigh, reaching up to rub a hand over his eyes as his shoulders slumped with this new addition to the figurative weight on them. He'd had so much else to worry about, with his dad missing and this thing with the demon and the situation with Dean...and he'd forgotten he actually had even more.

"Yeah," he said, finally, wishing the word didn't sound quite so ragged when he said it. "Yeah. I'll make it, don't worry."

"Maybe...you could reschedule. If you haven't found your dad by tomorrow afternoon. You could explain it's a family emergency - "

"No," he interrupted. "Jess...don't worry. I can handle this. I'l be back in time to make my interview, I promise."

"Is your brother okay with that?"

"He doesn't care." Sam glanced over at Dean's prone form, feeling a sudden surge of anger towards him for, like he'd said, not caring about what he'd managed to do with his life in the two years since he'd last seen him. But he found himself unable to maintain it.

"Oh." She paused, and he could hear fabric rustling in the background. Like the sheets of their bed. Maybe he really had woken her up. "So...he's still doing okay, too?"

"He's mad at me," he said, without thinking, and mentally smacked himself. He couldn't believe he'd said that, brought it up - now she'd want to know why Dean was mad, and the reasons behind that were the absolute last thing he wanted to discuss with Jess.

 _And why's that?_ something in him asked. _Do you actually know...or are you just afraid that she'll react like Dad did?_

He shoved that thought down. Forcefully.

"Really? Why?"

"Well, he made me mad, and I - " He rubbed a hand over his face, up into his hair. "I...shoved him. I shouldn't have, and, y'know, I feel bad about it...I tried to apologize, but he's just pissed. He doesn't want to hear it."

There was a moment of silence, and he could almost hear her, disbelieving, thinking, _That's it? Really?_

But, of course, she hadn't seen it...and she didn't know.

"Well, you _did_ say you guys don't really get along," Jess said finally, her tone sympathetic. Sam wasn't sure he wanted sympathy - at least, not from her.

"Yeah. We don't. I just..." He sighed again, dropping his head so that his chin practically rested on his collarbone. "I hate that he's mad at me, and that I...well, that I actually deserve it this time."

He'd been tired. Otherwise, he never would have said that, never would have felt that way. As it was, he internally yelled at himself the whole time Jess was assuring him that he and Dean would, eventually, patch things up. Sometimes, the furious voice in his head was his own; sometimes it was his father's.

He was in the right here. He'd made Dean stop touching him, and that was an accomplishment. He shouldn't feel bad, shouldn't be hurt by being given the cold shoulder, but...

Things would go back to normal once he got home and Dean was gone. He could look at the whole thing objectively again - actually, he wouldn't even have to think about it at all. Once they found their dad and got rid of the demon, it would be entirely over. That gave him some relief, to know that his emotions would start making some sense again soon, would start being safe and normal again. Not much, but some.

He'd said goodnight to Jess, told her he loved her and meant it. And then he'd tried to sleep...but he couldn't, not with Dean so close and his feelings so...complicated. He'd gotten maybe an hour or two of sleep, and he was used to seven. No wonder he felt so out of it this morning.

"So," Sam began now, forcing himself to focus. "We'd better go check out the base. I think we have everything we're gonna need, don't we?"

"Shouldn't we go when it's dark?" Dean replied, idly spinning the book in front of him on the slick vinyl of the table. "As a general rule, these sorts of creepy-crawlies tend to be a lot more active at night."

He sounded...disinterested. Sam couldn't tell if he preferred his not caring to last night's blatant hatred or not, but, hey, at least he was talking to him in completely sentences. Which meant they could work together, get this whole thing over with as fast as possible.

"We can't do that," Sam said, closing the lid of his laptop without bothering to turn it off first. He might need to look at the pages he had up later. "If I'm gonna get back in time for my law school interview - on Monday morning," he reminded him. "We have to leave before nightfall."

"'Nightfall'?" Dean raised an eyebrow. "Have you started writing poetry or something? Jesus."

Sam opened his mouth to defend himself, but Dean continued before he could say anything.

"If you're so worried about it, just...leave now," he said, not looking at him as he flipped his book closed and spun it more effectively. The hiss of the jacket against the table was starting to get on Sam's nerves. "Rent a car or hitch-hike or something. I don't really care. Just so long as you're not here, whining about how you absolutely have to get back to school for your lawyer-thing or whatever when I'm trying to gank something." He glanced off across the library, and frowned. "Man, I wish they allowed coffee in here. I could do with about a gallon of espresso right now."

Sam took a deep breath, wanting to stay calm, realizing that he probably wouldn't be able to. If his behavior up to this point was anything to go off of.

"Yeah, I have a life outside - this now," Sam said in a low voice, leaning forward. He'd almost said, "A life outside _you_." "That doesn't mean I can't focus on the case. We can do what we need to and still hit the road on time."

"Focus on the case...right." Spinning the book faster, Dean smirked down at it, but there was no humor in the expression. "So. Were you..." He looked up, face carefully blank. "...'focusing on the case' when you called me a pedophile?"

Sam struggled to control the fierce, sudden rush of anger that crawled up his throat and all but made his vision skew, telling himself that he couldn't afford to sink to his level. But he felt a muscle in his jaw twitch anyway.

"I never called you a - "

"Well. Maybe not in so many words." Dean shrugged, smiling a little - the tight, crooked, ironic smile Sam knew meant he was hurt, angry. "But, don't worry, I got what you meant."

Sam glanced around, discreetly, without moving his head, before leaning forward and hissing, "Really? You want to do this now?"

"Can't think of a better place." Dean stopped spinning the book, mercifully, and turned around in his chair, making a show of examining the bottom of the bookcase behind him. "The bookcases are bolted to the floor. They won't tip over if you shove me into one."

"Look. I'm...I'm sorry about last night." And he actually was, but he wasn't sure how well that was coming through. "I shouldn't have done that. But finding Dad and finishing up this hunt - don't you think that's more important than this shit between us?"

"Do _you_ think so?" Dean asked, going back to spinning the book. "It makes you sick to look at me, Sam. Freakin' _sick_." He looked up, off into the distance, expression completely unreadable. "I touch you, anywhere at all, even for just a couple seconds, and you Hulk out on me. And don't think I can't tell how much you beat yourself up when you're around me." He spun it faster, wrist flicking rapidly, light glinting off the ring on his hand. Sam gritted his teeth. "Don't tell me we can hunt like this."

"We can. It's only for a day - less, actually." Sam felt his hands automatically clench into fists. "Look. Dean. You're making it worse right now. Let's just..." He swallowed, fighting desperately to control his emotions, because...he didn't want to start throwing punches in a library? He didn't want to hurt Dean again? He wasn't sure. "...try to treat each other civilly. Get through this without killing each other or bringing up anything that's...sensitive."

"Like your ass?" Dean asked without missing a beat, still spinning the book, his attention entirely taken up by that. Sam clenched his teeth so hard that that one tooth started aching again, and raked a hand through his hair, so roughly that he yanked out several dark-brown strands in the process. "What?" Dean asked, looking up and widening his eyes. "You _screamed_ when I - "

"Cut it out." Sam slapped a hand down on top of the book, putting an end to the spinning. Dean eyed him.

"Cut what out?" he demanded, an edge to his voice. "Cut out talking about this? Cut out telling the truth?" He leaned over the table, until his nose was about an inch from Sam's. "Am I screwing with your new, _perfect life_ , Sammy?"

"Don't call me that." He shook his head, looking away, unable to put the anger that the words deserved behind them.

"You like it," Dean said, his tone accusing.

Sam stood up, still not looking at him, pushing his chair back as he did so. He hoped it would put an end to the conversation. It didn't.

"And you hate that you do," Dean added, rising as well.

"I just want to find Dad, and go home," Sam replied, in as calm a voice as he could manage. "I won't bring any of this up if you don't." He picked several books up off the table, shelving them on a nearby cart before grabbing his laptop. "Let's go."

He didn't even realize he was waiting for Dean to lead the way out until he moved, shoving his chair back in under the table they'd been occupying for that past couple of hours. He stalked in the direction of the front doors, weaving through the maze of shelves with Sam following him, several feet behind.

He ached, in his chest, right behind his sternum. He wasn't even sure it was an entirely physical pain, and he didn't understand why it was there.

"So you're pretty excited to get back to California." Dean said it casually, all of his previous hostility gone, but Sam couldn't see his face. So he didn't know what he was feeling, and he didn't trust that buddy-buddy tone. Mostly because of the conversation they'd just had.

"Yeah," he answered, stiffly. "I am."

"And your girlfriend?"

This time, he didn't respond.

"Yeah, you two seem pretty close...which, y'know, just strikes me as kinda weird," Dean tossed over his shoulder. When Sam didn't rise to the bait after a couple of seconds, he continued. "I mean, can you even get it up for her? You always loved cock - "

"Shut up," Sam spat out, unable to hold it in any longer. He stopped in his tracks, the hand that wasn't occupied with holding his laptop clenching into a fist, and Dean stopped, too. He turned halfway around, looking his brother up and down with an expression that was more weary than cruel or vindictively pressed.

"You gonna hit me again, Sammy?" he asked quietly, and Sam felt all of his fury drain away.

 _Are you going to hit me again?_ He heard the words inside his head, in his own high-pitched, five-year-old voice. It brought back sudden, involuntary memories, of the demon hunt Dean'd mentioned yesterday, the last one they'd been on. Of being holed up in a motel room with his older brother, who he loved more than anyone or anything else in the world, and who, for some reason, had been distant. Unwilling to so much as touch him - at first.

 _No. Don't do this, I_ forgot, _I moved on -_

"No," Sam said, matching his tone as he relaxed his hand. "No, I'm not."

Something almost seemed to shift between them, and Dean nodded once, slowly. Sam tried to put a finger on what was different now, but couldn't. Maybe because it was so infinitesimal.

"Then let's go gank a demon." Dean turned, and motioned for him to follow. He did. And, out in the car, Dean might have commented that he was being pretty quiet, but Sam didn't hear him. He had surrendered to remembering, despite how dangerous he knew it was, what it might make him feel.

_Are you going to hit me again?_

At least it made the weird ache in his chest hurt less.

**Mid-February, 1989**

Dean was ten, and Sam was five. He only knew that because, for a little over four months every year, Dean was five years older than him instead of four - and it made him even cockier than usual. It meant he got to sit in the front seat of the car whenever Dad wasn't using it to hold luggage or gear, he got to pick the music they listened to, he got to order first at diners. Sam pretended it annoyed him, because, for some reason, he knew he was supposed to. But he honestly didn't mind; just so long as Dean still slept wrapped around him, and washed him first when they took a bath or a shower (always together), and touched him in all the ways he'd learned he liked. Which he always did.

But, this year, it was...different, and Sam wasn't sure why.

Things had started changing a couple of weeks after school started, for no reason at all that he could see. Sam had thought that Dean would be happy, because he was doing a lot better, school-wise. Bullies didn't bother him anymore - not really. Kids still called him names when they were out of earshot of the teacher, and they shoved him into walls or puddles every once in awhile, and he could hear them whispering about him sometimes. And, yeah, it hurt - but not all that much, because he knew he'd be going home soon, where his brother was and none of them mattered. It was hard to cry over being called a loser when he was sitting in Dean's lap to watch TV, leaning back against his chest with his arms wrapped loosely around him.

But Dean had started looking...troubled when he came to pick him up. He didn't smile, even when Sam bolted out of the building to hug him and beg him to hold his hand on the way home. He didn't want to talk about his day, he was abnormally quiet about everything else, and, when Sam asked him what was wrong, he just shook his head a little and muttered, "I just learned some stuff today, is all."

"Well...what kinda stuff?"

"Just...stuff, Sammy." He smiled weakly, hesitantly ruffled his thick hair. "Wanna watch TV or something?"

Sam decided he could deal with Dean not talking to him. He was more or less okay with him trying to work out whatever was bothering him on his own (and, about sixteen years later, he'd be shocked by how mature this way of thinking was, for a kindergartner) - just so long as he still spent plenty of time with him and held him and listened to him talk about his nightmares and whatever book he was reading and what he wanted to be when he grew up (currently, it was a doctor). It was only when all of that started to ebb that he really worried.

He'd wake up, curled into a terrified ball under the covers and completely alone, with Dean all the way over on the other side of the bed. He wouldn't hold his hand on the way home from school, pushing his questing arm away and murmuring something about how he didn't think they should. On the rare occasions they drove somewhere, Dean didn't want to sit next to him in the back seat, rebuffed all his efforts to try and cuddle. He didn't want to shower or bathe together. He didn't want to kiss - and he _really_ didn't want to kiss in front of Dad. When Sam tried to touch him, in the special way he'd discovered two years ago, he actually slapped his hand away. It didn't physically hurt all that much, didn't leave a mark, but Sam cried anyway, under the covers that night with Dean so far away from him that they might as well be in different countries. He just didn't understand why he'd changed - maybe he'd done something wrong. So he tried apologizing...but that just made Dean look miserable and guilty, and things didn't get any better.

In fact, they got so bad that Sam actually went to their dad for help. It was a more-than-rare occurrence. Sure, Dad hugged him, brought home food and money and clothes. But Sam always went to Dean if he needed something, because Dean had always been, more often than not, the one who fed him, comforted him, looked after him. And Dad had been even more absent than usual these past few months - which, at Sam's age, was the only portion of the past that really mattered to him. Dad had said he wanted Sam to spend the year at only one school, ignored the look of puzzled hurt that had flickered across Dean's face as he realized _he'd_ never spent the year at only one school, and explained that he'd be going out of town to hunt (not that he told Sam that), so the older of his boys would have to look after the younger. And he'd put that plan into action...but Sam went to him anyway. He didn't know where else to turn.

"He's just turning into a teenager," Dad said when he asked him (for some reason, just mentioning the cuddling and the spending time with him - not the other things), glancing up from the machete he was sharpening to look Sam in the eye. They were both sitting on the end of his bed. "It's normal, Sammy. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if he's already got some girl he's thinking about."

For some reason, that made Sam's stomach hurt. Even though he was pretty sure that wasn't it. Dean was only ten, and he said so.

Dad looked tired when he did, sad, though he couldn't understand why. He set the machete aside and leaned forward to ruffle his hair as he said quietly, "Yeah, I know. You kids are growing up too damn fast."

Sam ducked away from his father's huge, scarred-and-callused hand. He only liked Dean touching his hair.

The situation didn't peak until Dad left again. He spent the whole day before he went at the local library, and came home bleary-eyed and troubled-looking as Sam and Dean were sitting at the tiny table in the room, eating cereal and not talking. Sam put his bowl in the sink and watched him as he sat on the end of his bed and took a hit from the flask he kept inside his leather jacket, then another, then called Dean over to speak to him in a low, serious voice. Dean nodded solemnly when he was done, and stood with his arms tightly crossed while their dad hugged Sam and left.

It was Friday night before a long weekend, because Presidents Day was on Monday and neither of them had to go to school. They'd been given strict instructions not to leave the room until their father got back - not even for school.

Dean seemed nervous.

Sam rubbed his bare arms, realizing that it was actually pretty cold in the room and the T-shirt he was wearing just might not be enough. When he passed Dean on the way to the bag that held his jacket, he hesitated, like he wanted to touch him, then turned away slightly. Sam stopped.

"How come you start doin' that, all of a sudden?" he asked. Dean glanced at him out of the corners of his eyes.

"Doing what?"

"You don't...you never let any part of you touch me. You don't even like looking at me, seems like. You wouldn't look at me just now, when I walked by you." Sam folded his arms, covered with goosebumps, and mirrored Dean's position. "I wanna know why."

"Well...I..." Dean stumbled over whatever it was he was trying to say. "It's just...it doesn't really matter."

"Tell me," Sam demanded. "You don't _talk_ to me anymore."

"I just...I don't think we should do certain things anymore." He suddenly found a distance that Sam couldn't see very interesting, awkwardly reaching up to rub the back of his neck. "Touching and stuff. We should stop that."

"Stuff like this?" Sam reached up, and laid a small hand, palm-flat, against Dean's chest. He was confused, and more than a little angry, that he was being ignored, abandoned..and the guy doing it wouldn't even tell him why. He felt that he deserved to be treated better than this, though he was too young to put that feeling into words, and he could tell that Dean didn't want what he was suggesting any more than Sam did. He didn't understand. "Why?"

"Well...because..." Dean hesitated. Sam could feel his heartbeat, thrumming abnormally fast and hard under his palm. He could feel warmth, and bone, and muscle. Dean was only ten, but their dad took him out as often as he could to learn how to handle guns and knives, and get strong enough to fight and survive. For whatever reason. It was something that they both said Sam was too young for right now. "Y'know, you're just a little kid." He grabbed Sam's wrist and, gently, moved his hand off of his chest. "You wouldn't get it."

"Yes, I would!" This time, Sam grabbed onto the belt loops of Dean's jeans, an area that his chest was just about level with. "Tell me, Dean." He looked up at his big brother, and he knew that his lower lip was sticking out petulantly, but he didn't care. "I wanna know."

"No," Dean said firmly, pushing Sam away from him just a little, being as gentle as he could. Sam felt tears sting his eyes, but he didn't let them fall, because Dad had, time and again, hammered into both of them that crying didn't fix anything at all. He was cold, goosebumps prickling on his arms and rising along his back and legs now, and he wanted Dean to see that and take care of him. More than anything, he just wanted to crawl under the covers of their bed with him, so he could snuggle up close, and be held, and listen to Dean saying he still loved him. Without even noticing, he started to shiver.

Dean sighed heavily, seeing that, and herded him towards his bags with a soft, "All right, c'mon. PJs. Let's get you into bed, Sammy."

"What about you?" he asked, holding back the urge to sniff pathetically while Dean dug for his pajamas. Dean snorted.

"It's eight-freaking-thirty," he pointed out. "I'm not going to bed."

"Will you?" Sixteen years in the future, Sam would be completely incapable of asking his brother to hold him when he wanted him to, but, now, he wasn't quite so handicapped. He held his arms out, pleading for a hug, for closeness. For reassurance. "Please?"

"Maybe later," was what Dean said nervously, after a very long silence. Instead of pulling Sam towards him like he was supposed to, he just dumped the old, over-sized T-shirt he still slept in into his outstretched arms. Sam hurt. But he still didn't let himself cry, even though, before, Dean had always helped him get dressed. Planted gentle kisses on his bare back as he did so if Dad wasn't around, cupped him between the legs without really touching him to make him giggle. Obviously, that wasn't going to happen tonight.

Once Sam was tucked in (which he pretty much did entirely by himself), Dean sat on Dad's bed, and switched on the TV, making sure the volume was as low as possible. Curled up under the covers, trying to get warm, Sam settled his head on the flat pillow and stared at him. Close-cropped blonde hair, getting darker as he got older. Green eyes, which, more often than not, were filled with a jittery sort of guilt whenever he was looking at Sam. A spray of freckles across the bridge of his nose, a permanently-fierce expression, a wiry, narrow-hipped build. He loved him unconditionally, so much it physically hurt him when they were separated, and he knew he wouldn't be able to sleep tonight. Not without at least knowing why things had changed between them.

He sat up, swinging his legs out of bed, and Dean didn't notice. Not until he climbed onto Dad's bed, and crawled up next to him, kneeling where he couldn't ignore him with his shaggy hair already messed up from less than five minutes in bed and the old T-shirt spilling over his thighs. Dean glanced at him, set his jaw, and stabbed a button on the remote next to him to turn off the TV before asking, "What do you want, Sam?"

He almost flinched, because Dean _never_ called him 'Sam' - always 'Sammy.' But he stayed stoic and said, plaintively, "'M cold."

"Yeah...I know." Dean's eyes softened, and, for a second, Sam thought for sure that he would give up whatever stupid game he was playing and finally touch him. Pull him into a tight, intimate hug, stroke his hair back from where it was falling into his eyes, grip his shoulder and guide him into a kiss...but he didn't. "Go back to bed. You'll warm up in a a bit."

"No, I won't," Sam protested, starting to shiver again. "The bed's cold, Dean, it's way too big - I'm not gonna warm up." He reached out, pleadingly, to touch his brother's face. "Please, Dean..."

Dean smacked his hand away with a strained, "No," looking guilty and sick as he did it, and, this time, it hurt. The back of Sam's tiny hand was already turning red when he jerked it back with a high-pitched yelp of pain, cradling it close to his chest. He wanted to cry, but, oddly enough, Dean's face crumpled before he could even make up his mind to just act like a baby and let the tears fall. He grabbed the bedspread, clenching it so tightly his knuckles turned white and working it between his fists as he glanced away and whispered, "I'm sorry, Sammy, I'm so sorry..."

Sam felt like sobbing, because he was so hurt and confused and he was still shaking miserably with cold. He wanted to howl out something like, _Why can't I touch you?_ or _Don't you love me anymore?_ What he did instead was stare down at his bare knees, studded with goosebumps, with dry eyes, still clutching his stinging hand to his chest. In a tired voice that betrayed none of the pain and anger he was feeling, he asked, "Are you going to hit me again?"

"No! No, never. Never again. I'm so sorry, I hurt you and I can't believe I did that, Sammy, I - " Dean stretched out a hand towards him, obviously meaning to try and comfort him, but he faltered. Dropped his hand limply to the bedspread, and Sam felt a surge of infantile frustration.

"Why won't you touch me?" he demanded. It was getting harder and harder not to just start crying; his throat ached, he was shivering violently now.

"You don't get it," Dean said, his voice barely audible as he squeezed his eyes shut.

"Then 'splain it to me!" Sam articulated better than a lot of kids his age. His kindergarten teacher called him 'gifted.' But he was still only five years old, and his speech tended to regress when he was feeling strongly about something. The fact that his teeth had started chattering probably didn't help.

"I..." Dean hesitated, then sighed. "Aw, Sammy." Very reluctantly, he opened his arms, an invitation that Sam had been aching for for months. "C'mere. Let's warm you up."

Sam all but launched himself at him, slamming into his chest so hard it prompted a grunt of surprise from both of them. He buried his face in his chest, barely even aware he was making happy cooing sounds as he settled into his lap, relaxing completely when he'd put his arms around him. Pressed tight against Dean, he stopped shivering almost immediately.

**Mid-September, 2005**

_I was just too young to know any better,_ Sam told himself firmly, as he shoved a whiskey flask full of homemade holy water into his pocket and threaded the leather sheath of an iron knife onto his belt. _It was his fault for giving in to me. Because he knew, he'd figured it out...and he kept doing it anyway._

"Ready?" Dean asked, standing a good distance behind him with a sawed-off shotgun, loaded with salt rounds, dangling over his arm.

"I guess." Sam replaced the shotgun they used to prop up the false bottom of the Impala's trunk, lowering it and then slamming the trunk closed. He thought for sure that Dean would be looking at him as he did that, eyeing the muscles of his back and ass, but, no, he was staring at the base. They were still a ways away from it; they had to get through the fence. It just looked...abandoned, burned-out and rundown, not really haunted or spooky. But maybe it was different at night.

Dean didn't answer, just shoved his gun into the duffel bag he was carrying his gear in and slung it so it rested on his back as he walked over to the rusting fence. Squinting in the brilliant desert sun, he laced his fingers together, and gave Sam a wordless boost when he placed his foot in his hands. When Sam dropped down on the other side, shaking his hands to try and get rid of the searing sensation of sun-heated metal, he clambered over himself.

"Thanks," Sam said, his voice abnormally loud in the hot silence. Dean looked at him, his expression neutral, but didn't say a word.

He wondered why the ache in his chest suddenly worsened.


	7. Chapter Seven

The interior of the base was dark, where there was still glass in the windows, because the panes were blackened by smoke and the grime that had accumulated over the course of about thirty-three years. Where they'd been broken or were just missing, beams of mid-morning sunlight fell through in jagged patterns and illuminated the rubble that covered the cement floor. With his boots and the bottoms of his jeans already black with ash and dirt, Sam carefully picked his way through it, sweeping the beam of a flashlight over it where there wasn't any sunlight. He prayed he didn't break an ankle, because then Dean would have to carry him out.

Dean was leading the way through the darkened hallways, wielding a flashlight whose beam was marginally dimmer than Sam's. He moved slowly over the drifts of concrete chunks and ash and other burned stuff that, hopefully, weren't the remains of people. He hadn't spoken to Sam once since kicking in a door held shut by a padlock that had been more rust than metal, and the fact that it was completely silent outside the crunch of their boots was making Sam twitch a little. He didn't understand why he hurt, inside, or why he had a sudden, desperate need to hear Dean's voice. He just wanted him to talk, and he had been telling himself that it was because of some instinctual desire for human contact. But that explanation was wearing thinner and thinner as time went on.

He was...troubled (yeah, that was a good word for what he was feeling) by everything that was going on with him. He was angry at himself for remembering what it was like to be held by Dean, back when their sizes had been proportionate to their ages. He knew better than that, had done better for two whole years.

He never should have agreed to come with Dean. Being so close to him was dredging up old, unhealthy feelings, making him doubt what he knew had been the right thing to do.

Dean nudged open one of a pair of double doors with a metallic creak, shining his flashlight into the near-total darkness of what looked like it had once been a mess hall. It glinted off blackened tin trays and overturned chairs, their legs twisted from heat that was long gone. As Sam came up behind him, he muttered over his shoulder, "Smell that?"

Sam sniffed. For a second, all he could smell was ash, stale, musty air...and Dean's cologne, which he did his best to shut out. But then he picked up another scent, a fainter, more chemical one.

"Ozone," he said, with no enthusiasm at all. "Great."

"Yep." Dean nodded, adjusting the strap of his duffel bag on his shoulder. He dug into it, pulling out a sawed-off and shoving the stock at Sam before grabbing one for himself. "We've got ghosts."

"Like the demon wasn't enough," Sam muttered, taking the gun and holding it down by his side, his fingers automatically sliding into the correct positions. He didn't want to admit it to himself, but some part of him was desperately thrilled by the amiable tone in Dean's voice, and the fact that he didn't seem to be mad at him anymore. "Ever feel like God hates you?"

"God doesn't exist," Dean said matter-of-factly, kicking through a particularly large pile of concrete fragments and scattering them loudly across the floor of the mess hall. Sam winced, hoping that nothing too nasty had been alerted to their presence by that. "But I figure I must have pissed someone off."

He stepped into the room, his flashlight beam cutting a very thin line through the darkness, and Sam followed close behind. Something scurried away, off on the opposite side of the cavernous room. Probably a rat, but, nevertheless, Sam raised the barrel of his shotgun a little. He was glad for the decision when rubber - like the soles of a pair of sneakers - whispered against the concrete nearby.

"Did you hear that?" he asked Dean, keeping his voice low. Dropping his voice a couple octaves, he'd learned early on, was actually more effective than whispering when you didn't want to be heard. There were no hisses to carry.

"Hear what?" Dean stepped back a little, sweeping the beam of his flashlight in a wide circle. Near one of the corners of the mess hall, it sounded like a chunk of concrete bounced across the floor.

"I think there's someone else in here." Sam thumbed back the hammer on his gun.

"Well, yeah, obviously..." Dean stepped back again, until they were almost touching. "The ghosts and the de - " He stopped abruptly when Sam, almost imperceptibly, stiffened. "Oh. Gee. I'm sorry," he said, voice heavy with sarcasm. "Am I too close, Sammy?"

"Dean, please don't call me that," Sam muttered, moving away until he felt comfortable again. The nickname still shot him through with memories of hips bucking against his, hot, wet kisses trailing down the back of his neck, his brother laying him down and stroking his hair soothingly while he came down from an orgasm so intense he was surprised his lanky teenage body had been able to contain it...but it just didn't inspire the same furious anger that it usually had these past couple of days. Maybe because he was so tired. At any rate, he was a little grateful for the lack of rage, because this wasn't really a good place to fight with Dean.

"I'll call you whatever the hell I want, we're gonna be done with each other in a few hours." Dean stomped away from him, but his voice didn't sound nearly as raw and angry as it had at the library, when he'd been telling Sam that he obviously made him sick. "You're gonna have to get over this phobia of me; it's just not working."

"'S not a phobia," Sam murmured.

"Then what is it, huh?" Dean spread his arms wide in a "do tell" gesture. Suddenly, he dropped them again and just shook his head. "You know what? I don't care. I just wanna find Dad and finish this case, and I'm pretty sure you want the same thing." He scrubbed a hand through his hair, and Sam was sure that his dark-blonde brush cut would be full of black streaks the next time they came across a light source. "Look. We need to work together, and, before, we were actually pretty damn good at it. We can do that again, like you've been wanting. So." He crossed his arms over his chest, his flashlight illuminating a metal dog tag that had melted into the vinyl surface of one of the tables. "I'm going to put everything I feel towards you aside, okay? You're not my brother, you're not my lover..." Sam flinched a little, but Dean ignored him. "...you're just my partner. And I would really appreciate it if you would do the same."

 _How the hell am I supposed to pretend you're just my partner when I had your cock in my mouth and up my ass before I was even fourteen?!_ demanded a furious voice in Sam's head - probably stemming from the part of him that had been fueling most of his outbursts. He automatically agreed with it, felt the words on the tip of his tongue, but he swallowed them and crushed that voice. Dean was actually making an effort, offering him a chance at civility, neutrality - safety. He couldn't lash out at him (and certain parts of him, parts of him that had lain dormant under mental lock and key until recently, didn't want to). He knew it was a pretty fine line he was walking; he couldn't afford to touch, feel, or remember, and he couldn't afford to hit, hate, or insult, either. But it was only for a few more hours.

"I can do that, don't worry," he said quietly, swinging his flashlight around to search for whatever had made the noises he'd heard. "And...I'm sorry. For how I've been treating you. You didn't...it was unprofessional."

"I probably deserved most of it," Dean said flippantly, gracefully accepting his brother's weak, jumbled apology. "Now that we've stood here arguing like a couple of sitting ducks for about five minutes...where'd you hear that first sound?"

**Mid-February, 1989**

"You're warm now, right?" Dean asked quietly, Sam nestled against him, breathing so evenly that he might as well have been asleep. "I mean...I can let go of you?"

Sam, face buried contentedly in the hollow between his shoulder and his neck, automatically tightened his grip on his older brother's shirt. He didn't understand why Dean sounded so uncomfortable; before things had started changing for the worse, holding Sam had seemed to be one of his favorite things to do. Especially when he was as stressed out as he seemed to be, lately.

"No," he said, firmly. His voice was muffled; he raised his head, looking Dean in the eye as he demanded, "How come you _want_ to? 'M not done yet." He rested his chin on Dean's shoulder, eyes hooding sleepily as he let most of his frustration and anger drain away. He was too small to sustain things like that for long, especially after he'd basically gotten what he'd wanted. "Dean...you still didn't say why you didn't wanna touch me. Said you learned something - what'd you learn?"

Dean sighed, head drooping a little. "I'm not sure I should - "

"Dean!" Sam unclenched one fist and smacked his brother's chest with his open palm. It could barely even qualify as hitting; it was really more of a pat. But Dean flinched a little anyway. "Tell me."

"Well..." He hesitated, and Sam felt his heart practically throbbing against his own. He waited, matching his breaths to Dean's, until he let out a frustrated, exasperated groan and nuzzled into his dark hair. Sam shivered in sudden, gratified pleasure. "...the kids in my class. They've been talking about stuff I never heard before, stuff I didn't even know." His voice was quiet, regretful, and his breath was a little shaky as it puffed against Sam's scalp. "Like...what guys and girls do together, when they're trying to make babies, or...y'know, just, uh. Trying to have fun." (Years in the future, when a sixteen-year-old Dean used the word "fucking" every other sentence, Sam would think back on this conversation and find it unbearably hilarious.) "And what all that stuff is called, and...and why people who're related shouldn't do it 'cause it's - 'cause it's _wrong_."

He squeezed him tight, shaking a little, and Sam reached around to pat his back. Dean seemed to melt under his clumsy touch, sighing deeply into his hair. Still confused, but aware that his brother was so upset he wasn't even angry, just broken, Sam whispered, "Dean...I'on't get it."

"Sammy - all this stuff they've been talking about - " His voice hitched a little. "It's stuff _we've_ been doing."

"Like what?" Sam asked quietly, even as Dean pulled his head away from his and loosened his grip a little.

"Like..." He was looking off into the distance, again, his arms wrapped limply around Sam. "The kissing. We shouldn't do that - normal brothers don't do that."

"Dean - " His heart hurt, like a little hairline fracture had appeared in it when Dean said they couldn't kiss anymore. He wanted to say something that he just knew would be exactly right, would make his big brother love him again just like he used to, but Dean cut him off.

"And sleeping together - that's bad, too, that's, like, the worst," he was saying now, sounding like he was on the verge of tears, afraid and hurting and maybe even hating himself, just a little bit. Looking back on it, Sam wasn't sure if he'd been emotionally mature enough for his heart to break, but it'd sure felt like it. It had hurt more than anything he'd ever encountered before, seeing Dean like this. He was always so perfectly strong, stronger even than Dad, because he never Sam's side except when he absolutely had to, and he never changed, to slur his words and yell about things Sam had been told, over and over, weren't real. "I hold you too much, too. It's not okay for me to have you on my lap all the time, or to cuddle with you as much as I do. All this touching...it's not right. Not okay." He shook his head miserably, taking one hand off Sam to rub at his face, leaving a red mark Sam wanted to kiss away.

"Dean - it is, too, okay!" He pressed himself against Dean's chest, looking for warmth because he was getting cold again and reassuring him by reaching up to stroke the small, bristly hairs at the base of his neck. He wasn't really sure what he was doing; it was, honestly, more of an instinct-driven thing than anything else. But it seemed to be working. He could sense the comfort he was giving, as he burrowed deeper into his brother, his protector, his best friend's embrace, burying his face in his T-shirt and breathing in the sweet, musky scent that was entirely Dean. "Dean..."

"I told you you wouldn't understand," Dean said softly. Sam felt a hand on his hair, petting, gently working out all the tangles and snags. "You're just a little kid. You don't get it."

"I..." It was true; he didn't. He didn't understand why it was wrong. All he understood was that Dean was in pain and wasn't willing to do anything they both loved any longer, and it fell to him to fix it. He suspected he was the only one who could. "Dean - "

"I shouldn't touch you like I do." Dean cut him off, and Sam wondered if he even knew he had. He seemed lost now, barely even paying attention to what was around him; just needing to get rid of the information that had been lying in his mind for months now, all but poisoning him. His hand slipped off Sam's head. "And I shouldn't let you touch me like that. Put your hands down between my legs, jerk me off..." He hesitated before repeating himself in a voice that was barely even a whisper. "Normal brothers don't do that."

"Dean." Sam pulled back a little, away from the simple comfort of feeling his brother's voice vibrate in his chest, against his ear and jawbone. Without thinking about it, he put his small hands on either side of Dean's face, making him actually look at him, make eye contact. Sitting in his lap, he tried to look as serious as possible. "This _is_ normal, for us."

Hearing his own words from the very beginning of the school year, Dean closed his eyes and bit his lip. He held Sam close again, his movements so gentle it was almost as if he thought his baby brother had spontaneously turned into glass. Sam let go of his face, tucking his arms down in between their chests and snuggling closer in a search for warmth.

"You don't get it," Dean said softly, starting to rock them back and forth. The soothing, familiar motion made Sam yawn against him, under a wave of sudden sleepiness. "And you don't really care, either, do you?"

Sam shook his head, face pressed into his shoulder, because he really didn't. He just wanted his brother back, wanted things to be exactly like they had before. How they should be.

"Okay." Dean took a shaky breath, and buried his face in Sam's hair again. He was relaxing, his breathing more even now, the rocking soothing instead of nervous. "Okay...this is okay. We can do this." His voice sharpened suddenly. "I don't even give a damn what anybody else thinks anymore. This is...this can't be wrong." He hugged Sam tighter, making him squirm suddenly and let out an involuntary sound of pleasure and gratitude. This was what he had needed for months, and finally getting it felt even better than he'd thought it would. "You're too perfect. It can't be wrong."

"I love you." Sam cooed it into Dean's T-shirt, nestling deeper into his tight, warm hug, and he'd never meant it more. Their dad was gone again, he'd been abandoned and he didn't understand what was going on, but he had Dean.

"I know," Dean murmured. "I know, Sammy." He fell silent for a moment, before saying, "C'mon, let's go to bed. I'm beat."

**Mid-September, 2005**

Sam forcibly shook himself out of the memory as he and Dean left the mess hall behind, not having been able to find whatever it was that had been making those noises. He couldn't afford to slip into a flashback here, where they might be attacked at any moment - and especially not...that sort of flashback. He felt like biting his tongue, digging his fingernails into his palms, giving himself just a little bit of pain to focus on so he could drag his mind out of the bad place it had apparently crawled into the second he felt Dean's hands on him again.

But part of him felt just as confused and lonely as he had when he was five years old and begging attention from his brother.

 _He never actually_ hurt _me._ The voice bubbled up out of the very back of Sam's mind, quiet but impossible to ignore and unmistakably his own. _He was so gentle with me, he never did anything I didn't like, he always asked before trying anything...he loved me. I loved him, I liked it - why does this horrify me so much?_

As soon as the question crossed his mind, every muscle in his body tightened in sudden, violent memory. His face stung like he'd been slapped, and he sucked in a desperate breath between gritted teeth, almost dropping his flashlight. His father's voice, just as furious and shocked and blatantly disgusted as it had been over two years ago, thundered through his skull and tore all the doubt apart like tissue paper.

 _It's_ sick, _Sam, most twisted thing I've ever seen in my entire career as a hunter - you're_ brothers. _He has the same mother you do, the same father, and you let him climb on top of you and - and - look at this, I can't even_ say _it. This is - it's_ inhuman, _is what it is. I'd pump you both full of rock salt and silver if I didn't know for a fact you two are full-blooded humans._

A snarl, just a sound of pure, animal rage.

_But, hey. I could be wrong. After all, you're acting like a couple of animals. A couple of monsters._

"Sam? You okay?" Dean glanced at him over his shoulder. Sam leaned against the wall of the corridor they were in and rubbed a hand over his face, not really caring that he was probably leaving ashy streaks around his eyes. That little flash of memory had been so completely different from the last thing he'd been remembering, so raw and powerful and practically serrated, that it had all but left him shaking. Not to mention totally scoured. The soft spot he'd been, somehow, harboring for Dean and the relationship he used to have with him - gone. His guilt over shoving him and yelling at him and basically treating him terribly - gone. That vague whisper of reassurance that, maybe, what they'd been doing hadn't been so wrong after all - gone. Gone, gone, gone. Leaving him feeling so empty he was surprised he could still detect his heart beating...but the ache was still there, in his chest. Worse than ever before, actually.

"I'm fine," he muttered, feeling a sudden flash of irritation at Dean for his concern. He pushed off the wall, feeling like he was eighteen again for just a second, wearing nothing but a pair of jeans and the leather jacket that had just barely become Dean's. Hunching his shoulders inward and bowing his head under the horrifying force of his father's anger.

"You sure?"

"Yes." Sam just wanted to be through with this, because it - well, it _hurt_ , and he didn't know why.

"'Cause you can head back to the car if you're not feeling good. I can finish up here."

He heard the challenge underlying Dean's words easily enough. If he left now, he'd be sending a pretty clear message: he couldn't handle this anymore. Either he just wasn't strong enough, or wasn't brave enough, or couldn't put whatever grudge he was holding on the back burner for so much as a few hours.

"I told you, I'm fine," he said quietly. Dean's hand twitched, down by his side, and Sam had a sudden, vivid image of Dean cupping the side of his jaw when he was fifteen, after he'd hit his head during a hunt, examining his face and eyes with genuine concern for signs of a concussion. That didn't happen this time. He didn't touch him, wouldn't touch him; and Sam could almost believe he was happy for that as Dean turned away and started walking again. He understood, without a shadow of a doubt in his mind, that it was good for them to keep their distance from each other. It was healthy. His dad's voice still echoed around the inside of his head.

 _I hated the bastard, but...he was right about this,_ Sam thought, closing his eyes briefly. _That outburst of his...it was what I need to - to really_ understand. _To get out and do the right thing and build a life I'm not afraid to tell anyone about for fear of them being horrified or repulsed or - or motivated to...get me away from it._

Even the voice inside his head was shaky and uncertain. He was a wreck; this whole thing was practically tearing him to pieces.

And he had started thinking of his father in the past tense. That was, doubtless, going to screw him up sooner or later.

"Hey!" Dean's sudden, rough shout startled Sam out of his thoughts. He blinked, automatically raising both his flashlight and his salt-filled shotgun and following his brother's lead on where to aim. Rubber-soled sneakers scuffed against the floor, scattering rubble and suddenly making the heavy silence of the base shockingly loud. It obviously wasn't either of them - they weren't moving, and, besides, they never wore sneakers. Their sturdy boots could stop a nail from going through the sole, crush broken glass harmlessly, cave in the skull of any monster they managed to wrestle to the ground, and hold up under a wave of acidic blood or venom. Sneakers couldn't.

The beam of Dean's flashlight swept forward, picking out a fairly-tall, well-built figure ducking around the corner up ahead, where the corridor met another and made a "T" shape. In the second that he saw him for, Sam got an impression of frayed blue jeans, a green T-shirt, and thick, dark hair shining amber in the light. He got only the briefest glimpse of the side of his face, the curve of an eye socket and the edge of a cheekbone, but what he did see triggered a sudden jolt of recognition in him. But he wasn't quite sure why. Not at first.

Dean took off, running after the guy with a curse. He only stumbled once, moving with a grace Sam wouldn't have expected form him if he hadn't spent so much time in physical contact with him. He followed, yelling, "Human! Don't shoot!" because he knew how Dean tended to think in situations like this.

"Yeah, I know - " Dean kicked through a pile of ash, sending a gritty black cloud straight into Sam's eyes and mouth. "Great. He probably thinks we're crazy now..." Raising his voice, he yelled, "Federal marshals! Stay where you are!"

Rounding the corner with Sam right behind him (more out of instinct than a conscious decision), shotgun just barely pointing down at the floor, he suddenly stopped dead.

"Okay...what the hell?"

There wasn't any sign of the guy they'd seen, which Dean proved when he methodically swept the beam of his flashlight around. There weren't any doorways nearby he could have ducked into, no other hallways he could have run down without them seeing. Dean lowered his gun fully, and cocked his head. Glancing at Sam, he uncertainly asked, "Ghost?"

Sam considered ignoring him, but the words were already in his mouth, and, besides. He didn't want to risk setting him off again when they'd just barely reached such a functional peace.

"I don't think so," he replied, tone carefully neutral. "The temperature didn't drop, and the smell of ozone didn't get stronger. But I definitely don't think he was human."

"Shoulda shot him," Dean muttered. He started down the hall, keeping a wary eye out. "You don't think he was our demon, do you?"

"I thought they looked like black smoke."

"Maybe they can change." He shook his head. "I've never hunted one before; I don't really know a whole lot besides how to get rid of 'em. I was way too young to help the last time Dad went after one."

"Speaking of Dad," Sam started. Just saying the word while so close to Dean sent a prickle of savage warning down his spine.

"What about him? He's gotta be in here somewhere. We'll find him."

"Are we even sure he's...well...here, though?" Nudging a foot through a drift of ash and charred plaster, Sam's stomach turned a little at the sight of what looked a whole lot like a blackened ulna. "If he'd gotten to the point where he would have wanted to check out this base, he would've had to've interviewed Mrs. Moon, and she didn't - " He stopped suddenly, something clicking. "God, that's it. I knew he looked familiar."

"Who? Dad?" Dean gave him a skeptical look, his features cast into hollow shadow as he turned his face away from the beams of their flashlights. "Well, gee, Sam, I wonder why."

"No, no." He shook his head, tamping down a sudden flare of irritation at having to explain himself. "The guy we were after. It was Lucas."

Dean stopped, unintentionally aiming his flashlight at Sam so he had to squint to see his blank expression. "Who?"

"Lucas Moon." This time, he couldn't keep a thin note of impatience out of his voice. "Mrs. Moon's son. The guy who went missing. She had a picture of him in her house."

"Jesus. You're right." Dean looked down the hall, to the inky blackness at the end of it. "So...what? Is he..." He shrugged. "I don't know, possessed? Or something? Can demons possess humans?"

"Don't ask me." Sam ran a hand through his hair, and exhaled explosively. "What did Dad tell you about that one?"

"Not much. It beat him up pretty bad, remember? He didn't like to talk about it." After a moment's silence, Dean smiled at him, the expression warm and affectionate and with no sexual pressure at all in it. "Glad you recognized him; I never would've caught that, if I'd been alone. Knew there was a reason I brought you along." He moved towards the nearest doorway, gesturing for Sam to follow him. "It's real nice to be hunting with you again."

Despite himself, Sam smiled back, and it felt real. He felt the pulse of something returning - the guilt, the longing. It was like he was standing with his palms pressed to a thick wall, feeling the steady beat of the captive sea behind it but not affected by it, and now water was trickling over the top. His dad's voice was so faint now in his head that it barely affected him at all, and he wasn't sure if he should be terrified that his lifeline to normality had suddenly dissolved in his hands, or if he should be happy that one of the barriers was temporarily down.

 _A barrier to_ what?

He wasn't sure. Or maybe he was, and admitting it scared him too much. He didn't know what to allow himself to think, what to allow himself to feel, and that scared him, too, after practically an entire life of knowing exactly where he stood with his emotions. Loving his brother more than anything else in the world, hating him for damaging him and ruining his childhood.

He remembered being five years old, falling asleep safe in Dean's arms, hoping to God that things never changed again, and he just didn't know what to feel.

**Mid-February, 1989**

Dean always slept in his boxers and the T-shirt that he'd worn that day, just like Dad did. Sam found it comforting, a ritual he could count on, and a welcome reminder of his father when he was gone (which was frequently). He liked to nestle against Dean's shirt, breathe in all the smells of his day - the rain he'd walked home from school in, cigarette smoke from the interior of the gas station where he'd stopped to pick up milk, exhaust from the parking lot of the motel - and, underneath all of that, his brother's own, unmistakable scent. A clean, complicated, almost sweet smell, a variation of which formed some of his earliest memories. He didn't like having to deal with the boxers when he wanted to touch Dean, but that was his only real complaint. And it hadn't actually been a problem for several months now.

Tonight, though, was finally different. Dean, still holding onto Sam, scooted off of Dad's bed and stood up, carrying him over to their bed with a grunt of effort and gently laying him down in the midst of the rumpled covers. Sam sat with his legs crossed and his hands in his lap, and watched Dean strip off his boots, jeans, and the flannel button-down he was wearing open over a green T-shirt with a faded, unrecognizable logo on it. Dumping his clothes over by the bags that held, basically, their entire lives when Dad had taken the car, he scowled at Sam, but there wasn't any real anger in it.

"What've you been eating, rocks?" he demanded. "I can barely pick you up anymore."

"You're lying," Sam accused, watching with something almost like anxiety as Dean padded back to the bed with bare feet. But he didn't tell him to scoot over and and then curl up on the very opposite side of the bed, like he usually did, lately. Instead, he flicked off the light and crawled up right next to Sam, pushing him down gently into a laying position and then pulling the covers up over them both, as he laid down with his chest against his back and one arm curled protectively around him.

"Yeah, I am," he said quietly, speaking into his hair. "You're still so tiny, Sammy. So fragile." He moved his hand down, gently tracing the lines of his chest and stomach, but froze on his lower belly, right above his crotch. Sam moved his feet slightly against the sheets, squeezing his eyes shut in disappointment. "I can...I can still pick you up just fine."

He sounded uncertain again, all of a sudden, frightened and guilty. Sam felt like there was a ball of ice in his stomach, but, before he could say anything, Dean's arm tightened around him. He held him close, nudging one leg over his, and murmured, "I missed this." He pressed a tender, tentative kiss to the nape of his neck, where his dark hair grew in soft and short. "Yeah, I missed this a lot."

Sam reached up, and pressed one hand against Dean's forearm, breathing deeply as he squeezed, holding him in place just in case he tried to move away. He nudged his hips backwards, snuggling closer and tucking his head down. He felt Dean press his chin to the top of it, just as close as Sam needed him to be and perfectly reassuring.

"Don't leave again, okay?" he asked quietly, a little flicker of fear that this wouldn't last worming its way into the fuzz of warmth and sleepiness and comfort that was clouding his brain. He didn't mean leaving literally, but emotionally, abandoning him again and leaving him miserable and confused and more alone than he could stand being. But he just wasn't quite sure how to put all of that into words, so he hoped Dean understood what he was trying to say. "Not ever again. Okay?"

"Okay. Yeah, never again." Dean's voice was gentle, loving. If anything about this was still bothering him, he must have shoved it to the very back of his mind. "You're my little brother, and I gotta take care of you. That comes before everything else, huh?" He patted his chest, even though it was awkward in the position they were in, the gesture simple and more than enough to make Sam completely let go of whatever stress and tension he was holding onto. He wiggled an arm under him, so he could hold him completely, and Sam made a soft, grateful cooing sound without even realizing it. "And I need you. You're, like, the best thing in my life." He paused, and, when he spoke again, it sounded like he was smiling, just a little. "But, if you tell anybody I said that, I'll rip you a new one."

"Wha's'at mean?" Sam asked sleepily, eyes closed and small body all tucked up into the curve that Dean's made. Dean's breathing was even against his hair as he considered it for a couple seconds.

"I don't really know," he admitted, finally. "There's this one kid at my school, a sixth grader, he says it all the time and I just thought it sounded tough. Forget about it." He sighed deeply, and shifted a little. "I love you, Sammy. I know I haven't been saying that like I should, but...I just want you to know it. I want to you _feel_ it."

Sam squirmed in his arms until he loosened his grip, then rolled over to face him. Dean cupped the back of his head with one hand, stroking his hair, and Sam opened his eyes and laid his palm against the side of Dean's face. Then they were kissing, their mouths pressed together, so close Sam imagined he could feel every single one of Dean's pulse points, his older brother's lips moving oh-so-gently against his. Exploring, testing what was okay and what he wanted, feeling him out and getting familiar with him again after such a long time without touching or being touched. Sam opened his mouth and gasped, quietly, love and joy and relief mixing together in his chest and stomach as Dean planted kisses on his chin and lower lip, waiting for him to close his mouth. When he did, he kissed back, and he knew his movements were clumsy compared to Dean's, but, right then, he didn't care.

When Dean tugged his oversized T-shirt up around his hips and anxiously whispered, "Is this okay, Sammy? Can I do this?" he nodded rapidly, let out a breathless, excited, "Uh-huh," and completely surrendered. Feather-light touches, coming from hands that were already getting callused from sparring and working, traced the shape of his belly, the insides of his thighs, and the ridges of his hips, getting steadily closer to the area between his legs. He was laying on his back, Dean crouched over him and touching him with only his fingertips. He whimpered with sudden need, lifting his hips a little as his brother started to stroke, rubbing from the base of him all the way up to his head with his thumb, holding him cupped in the palm of his hand as he stiffened. Den let him buck into his hand as he worked him out to his full length (which wasn't much - he was only five) with movements of his fingers, and Sam closed his eyes and bit his lip, the waves of pleasure coming from where he was being touched entirely welcome. They'd rarely done this, even before Dean stopped touching him for so long, because he could coax him into an erection, stroke him and pump his shaft with one fist and plant kisses on his head or around the base, but he couldn't give him release. Dean speculated that Sam was too young to "come," as he called it. Sam honestly didn't care. It felt good just the way it was.

Dean's hand was warm around him, as he worked gently up and down, stabilizing him with his other hand firmly gripping his shoulder. He was murmuring encouragement and assurances, voice full of affection, and every single one of his movements was soft and soothing. Almost like he was just trying to calm him down, get rid of the fear and hurt of the past few months, instead of giving him as much pleasure as he could handle. Sam panted, hips still rocking, and decided he didn't mind. It'd been a long day, he was exhausted, this was really just a way to reaffirm their relationship, and...oh.

He cried out a little, unable to help himself, as it suddenly started feeling really, _really_ good. Even better than normal. It felt like he was getting close to reaching something, cresting, as the waves of pleasure got more and more intense and crashed over him closer and closer together. Dean sped up his movements like he sensed he needed to, and Sam gasped, digging his fingertips into the mattress and thrusting up as hard as he could.

"D-De - " he started shakily, screwing his eyes shut as tight as they would go.

"You're fine, Sammy, just fine," Dean soothed, squeezing his shoulder and rubbing his thumb briefly over his head. "Hold on."

Sam cried out again, much louder this time, as what felt a whole lot like an explosion of pure, amazing sensation happened down between his legs and spread swiftly outwards. His bare toes curled, and he pressed his head back into the pillow he was resting on as he peaked. Dean held onto him tightly, hands warm and strong, and he was grateful for that, because this felt so powerful he thought it might carry him off if he wasn't anchored here. Something hot and sticky flowed out of him, or had flowed, and he hoped, desperately, that he hadn't wet himself. He wasn't sure he'd be able to look Dean in the eye if that was what had happened.

Coming down, feeling detached and contented and wholly satisfied, Sam raised his head, his tiny chest heaving as he took deep breaths. Even in the dim light, he could see just a little bit of pearly-white fluid, puddled on his stomach and his penis and Dean's hand. It looked familiar; he'd seen something like it on his own hands after touching Dean. His eyes widened slightly.

_Oh._

"Well, hey...look at that." Dean leaned forward to kiss his forehead, letting go of him. "Guess you're growing up."

He scooped him up, and carried him into the bathroom, to clean him up with a thin motel washcloth drenched in hot water. Being carried back to the bed, his arms wrapped around Dean's neck and his legs around his waist, Sam's eyelids drooped. He was all but asleep when Dean laid him down and then pressed himself against him, holding him close and snuggling with him under the covers. The feel of his arms around him was enough to send him off, feeling safe and loved.

Dad wouldn't come back for a week. Holed up in the motel room, Sam would be confused and terrified, but only for a few minutes at a time, before Dean noticed. He would kiss him, gently, and hug him, or hold him on his lap until he wasn't afraid anymore.

"It's okay, Sammy, I got you," he murmured, as Sam trembled against his chest. "You don't have to be scared. I'm here - I'm never gonna let anything hurt you, okay? I'm gonna take care of you. No matter what."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So...I'm aware that, physically, five-year-olds can't have a wet orgasm, but suspension of disbelief, everyone.


	8. Chapter Eight

Sam was being pretty quiet.

It was something Dean noticed a couple minutes after they tried (and, unfortunately, failed) to run down that guy who may or may not have been a demon. He was walking beside and slightly behind him, because the hallways they were wandering aimlessly through were too narrow for them to walk side-by-side - and, even if they weren't, Sam probably wouldn't want to walk next to him, a realization that like a kick to a part of him that was already bruised black and swollen with hurt. But his shotgun was lowered, he wasn't pointing out anything that looked even vaguely interesting (like the smear of yellow sulfur on the wall that they had passed), and, when Dean glanced back at him, his hazel eyes were sort of glazed over. Like he was thinking deep thoughts or sorting through a memory or something.

Dean honestly preferred this detached silence to Sam snarling and snapping at him, but he couldn't let him get lost inside his own head. Not here, surrounded by ghosts and a demon that was possibly wearing Lucas Moon's meat. He would rather Sam made snide, vague remarks about him being a child molester, if it meant he got his gun up in time to keep something from clawing his face off.

So he stopped, and waved a hand in front of Sam's face. "Hey. Major Tom. Wake up - I'm not gonna babysit you."

He blinked, then shook his head firmly, tucking his flashlight under his gun arm in order to run a hand through his hair. Now that his face wasn't totally blank, he had a weird look on it, and Dean wasn't quite sure what the expression was supposed to convey. It almost looked like he'd been trying to figure something out, and didn't really like the conclusion he'd come to.

"Sorry," Sam muttered, avoiding eye contact. Ash glittered in his dark hair, matting curls of it to his scalp. "I was just...I was thinking."

"Well, that's great, but d'you think you could, maybe, save the soul-searching until we get outta here?" Dean asked. "I need you to have your head in the game."

"I am. I mean, I do. Don't worry - I've got your back." A weak, very brief smile twitched at the corners of Sam's mouth, and Dean swallowed a sudden burst of gratified excitement. Yeah, Sam was smiling at him, not smiling back, actually _smiling_ \- but they were partners, nothing more. It didn't matter.

"Are you sure you're not, like...coming down with something? And it's screwing with your head?" Dean had a sudden urge to slip his hand underneath the fringe of hair that fell over Sam's forehead, to make sure he wasn't running a fever. Just like he had when they were younger. He remembered an eleven-year-old Sam, sick with influenza he'd never been vaccinated against, curled up in a cocoon of every blanket Dean could get his hands on...but still shivering violently and coughing so hard his entire skinny body shook with the force of it. Dean hadn't been able to bring himself to leave his side, except to get more tissues and hot water - and he bolted when he did. He'd been terrified, afraid that Sammy would get worse, that he'd die with Dean pressed against him. But Dad had been in trouble with the cops again, so he hadn't been able to take him to the doctor. Dean'd been hyperaware of all of Sam's illnesses, minor as they might actually turn out to be, ever since. But he didn't let himself touch him now, because that probably would've crossed one of the lines they'd just barely drawn in order to work together. "I mean, you were spazzing out earlier."

"Dean, I'm fine." Sam motioned him out of the way, then took the lead. "I just zoned out for a second. Did you see anything interesting?"

"Nah...not really." He shrugged. "Just proof that our demon's definitely in here somewhere." He told him about the sulfur he'd seen, and Sam nodded.

"It's gotta be Lucas," he said, sounding dead certain. "We have to try to find him again, trap him in a circle of salt, or maybe iron; then we can try and drive the demon out of him."

"Know any exorcism rituals, Father?" Dean asked, only half-joking. Sam shook his head, looking frustrated in the way he had when he was faced with a problem and didn't have the solution.

"Well, I've seen _The Exorcist_ just as many times as you have, but, somehow, I don't think anything from that would work." He shrugged helplessly. "I guess we could just throw holy water at him until it leaves."

"So we're gonna have a water fight with him." Dean smirked, and shook his head. "Y'know, somehow, when I envisioned my first demon hunt...I didn't see it being quite so stupid."

"Hey, at least it's not the - " Sam stopped dead, suddenly. _"Shit."_ When he shot a glance at him over his shoulder, Dean could see that his breath was misting in air that was suddenly about thirty degrees cooler than it had been, fine white steam streaming from between his lips. He felt goosebumps rise along his arms and lower back, and it wasn't just because he was focusing on Sam's lips. He wished he'd worn something heavier than a T-shirt, despite the oppressive September heat outside.

"Jesus, I hate double hunts." He pumped his sawed-off, index finger resting heavily on the trigger, and swept the beam of his flashlight around, searching for the apparition he expected to see lunging for him. But he didn't see anything. His back was to Sam's, as they unconsciously fell into one of the many defensive positions they'd had drummed into them until combat came as easily as breathing and walking, and he was perfectly aware of how close they were. His first, strongest instinct was to take half a step backwards, so they were pressed together, provide comfort and just a little bit more safety here. But he didn't let himself do that. "See anything?"

"No." Sam's breathing was ragged. "Okay, you're the expert on this case. The people who've been dying here recently - how'd it happen? Was it consistent with a poltergeist attack, or...?"

"I don't know if anybody's actually _died,_ they just went missing," Dean replied, jaw set and shoulders hunched to try and protect his neck. "The ghosts might not even be involved with that. They might just be, y'know, here,and the demon's using their home as a base of operations for whatever the hell it's doing." He fell silent for a second, thinking, then flashed a fast smile at the darkness all around him. "'Course, if I see one, I'm just gonna shoot." He cleared his throat; all the ash they'd stirred up was playing merry hell with his mucus membranes. "Take no...frickin'...chances." He stayed perfectly silent for a few seconds, listening to the too-loud beating of his own heart, then glanced back at Sam. "See anything?"

"No - "

"Marshals."

The voice, deeply masculine and perfectly calm, made them both spin around in a cloud of soot they brought up from the floor, flashlights and guns aimed perfectly on the first try. The beams both settled on the generically-handsome face of a tall blonde guy. He was actually blonde, too, like, platinum-blonde, not the borderline dirty-blonde that Dean classified himself as, and he was in military dress. Even though it looked a little outdated, his uniform was immaculate and fit him perfectly. He was obviously dead; no way would anyone corporeal be able to keep any article of clothing that clean in this place. And he didn't so much as squint in the double glare of two flashlights.

He looked familiar. For whatever reason. But Dean didn't really care about that as his finger tightened on the trigger of his shotgun.

"No - " Sam, who had apparently lost his freaking mind, reached over and shoved the barrel down. The gun kicked in his hand as rock salt exploded against the debris-strewn floor, and the ghost flinched. "No. Dean...wait."

"Sam, are you _nuts_ talk before?"

"Well..." He thought about it. All the ghost hunts he'd ever been on. Freezing his ass off, unable to smell anything but ozone and singed rock salt, ears filled with screaming and frantic gibbering... "Not coherently."

The blonde ghost flickered like a television set that needed to be pounded on a few times, which Dean knew all too well ghosts did way too often. He was standing in a parade-rest position, feet shoulder-width apart and arms folded behind his back. As Dean watched, he inclined his head a little in Sam's direction.

"It wouldn't have done him much good, if he hit me," he said, tone polite and just a little bit amused, "but thanks anyway."

"Loaded with salt rounds." Dean waggled the gun at him. "It woulda stung, at the very least."

The ghost raised both eyebrows. "Salt." He looked like he was thinking about it. "Never heard of that trick, I can honestly say...I figured there wasn't anything out there that could hurt me now."

"Sorry to burst your bubble."

"You're Jake Moon, right?" Sam asked, speaking up beside him. "Colonel Jake Moon?"

He smiled a little, and Dean realized why he looked familiar. That old lady - Mrs. Moon - had had a picture of him, from when he had been a few years younger than he appeared now.

"You've done your homework," he said, and Dean fought the urge to roll his eyes at the approving note in his voice. "Which means you know I'm dead, and, because you seem to have taken that in stride..." He scrutinized them, and Dean realized he hadn't blinked once since he'd come out of nowhere. Those sharp, intelligent eyes of his, an icy amber color, didn't look like they missed much. "I'm going to assume you're not actually federal marshals. Like you told the demon you were."

"Well, we have badges," Dean replied, shrugging.

"So he _was_ a demon?" Sam asked, ignoring him. He'd finally taken his had off of Dean's shotgun, apparently deciding he could be trusted to behave himself now. He was, weirdly enough, slightly disappointed; that had been as close to voluntary contact with him as Sam had gotten since he'd come to find him in California.

 _"She,"_ Colonel Moon corrected. "The host is male, but the... _thing_..." The dead could apparently hate, if the way he said that last word was any indication. "...is female. I think. She looks it, just a little, but it's..." He made a complicated little gesture with one hand. "...hard to tell." He turned then, ignoring the blank look Sam shot at Dean - he was looking to him for answers, automatically and without any malice in his gaze at all. His heart leaped, but he crushed the excitement, knowing that it was something he wasn't allowed to feel if he wanted this whole thing to work - and flickered again right before he beckoned to them. "You two had better come into my office."

Dean followed him, raising an eyebrow at the mention of an office because it seemed way too normal and domestic for this situation, but kept the barrel of his sawed-off slightly raised and his finger curled around the trigger. No matter how articulate they were, he didn't trust ghosts. He didn't trust anything, in fact, that wasn't fully human, with red blood and a beating heart and relatively blunt canines. And, even then, the list of those people who he would comfortably turn his back on was painfully short. Dad. Caleb. Pastor Jim. Maybe Bobby Singer, out in South Dakota, if it was just his head was pissed at and not actually him. Sam. Of course. Though he was no longer entirely sure about that...which, Jesus, hurt like a son of a bitch.

But he could kick through his drifts of pathetic feelings about that subject later. Right now, he needed to focus, just like he'd badgered Sam into doing.

Colonel Moon led them through a door, with a nameplate on it that was too blackened by smoke and warped by heat to read. Literally, _through_ a door - it was closed and he just walked right through it. Dean opted to kick it open, which earned him a coughing fit from Sam when the violent movement jarred loose a gritty cloud, and pretty much no reaction at all from the ghost. He moved behind a desk in the room, one that had probably once been modest but sturdy, but was now falling apart. The chair behind it only had two legs, and those looked like they were a couple minutes away from giving up the ghost - pun completely intended - but he lowered himself into it anyway, and the desiccated wood didn't so much as creak.

"You must," he began, leaning forward, placing his elbows on the desk, and steepling his fingers, "be here for the demon."

"We're looking into the disappearances that've happened around here," Sam replied, his voice still a little raspy after the coughing. Dean resolved to hurry, and get him out of here as fast as possible. The last thing they needed was for him to get black lung disease or something. "We want to find out what happened to the people who've gone missing, and stop whatever's been causing it."

The colonel flickered, then nodded. "Mm. Just like the Marine."

That latched onto Dean's attention with the claws of a harpy. He knew what those felt like, unfortunately, since a set had been wrapped around his head once when he was nineteen and they'd been hunting a small, ragged flight of the winged hags up in the Sierra Nevadas. Some of the most exotic things they'd ever gone after.

"Wait. What?" he asked, taking a step forward. "What Marine? Like, do you mean a retired one? Looked just a little bit like the two of us?" He gestured back and forth between himself and Sam, his sudden excitement making the movement fast and jerky.

"I suppose." Colonel Moon scowled. "Navy. Cocky bastards, every single one of 'em. We didn't like him, and I hope he could tell that."

"'We'?" Sam asked, sounding mildly curious. Dean personally didn't give a rat's ass about if there were more ghosts or this one had just decided to consider himself British royalty all of a sudden, so he jumped in before an answer could be provided.

"Okay, so, this Marine you hated. What happened to him?" He steeled himself in order to ask the next question. "Did the demon get him?"

"No. No, he left before he ever so much as caught a glimpse of her," the ghost replied, looking unconcerned. His arms flashed down so his hands were folded on the desk, with no movement at all, then flashed back to their original position. "He told us he'd come back and finish up, for send someone in his place."

"And when was this?" Sam asked. Dean couldn't believe how perfectly calm he sounded, totally polite with just the smallest amount of concern to convey how much of a hurry they were in. Like they were interrogating some normal guy in his normal office.

"I'd say this morning."

Sam and Dean exchanged fast, excited, meaningful glances.

Colonel Moon turned his head and nodded decisively to something they couldn't see. Dean shifted his grip on his gun. "I don't understand why he's important. This demon came in here yesterday, got me and my men under her thumb...no idea at all exactly what she did, but we can't leave, can't drive her out...have to do everything she tells us to."

 _Yesterday?_ Dean couldn't stop himself from raising an eyebrow. He knew for a fact that the disappearances had been going on for weeks before they even drew the attention of him and Dad. Maybe the ghost was screwing with them, but, in his experience, most spirits (especially older ones) weren't able to hold enough of their essence stable to be able to play any sort of mind games at all. It was way more likely that he just had absolutely no grasp of how time was actually passing. Which meant that Dad could have been here a week ago.

Damn it. Why couldn't anything ever be even just the tiniest bit easy?

"The people who've vanished," Sam pressed. Dean didn't entirely remember just what he'd explained to him about this case, so he wasn't sure if he'd picked up on Colonel Moon's obvious time discrepancy or not. When he'd been laying all the evidence out for him, he'd been all but drunk on how close he was, his scent, the way his hair curled over the tops of his ears. Not to mention lost and reeling from how Sam'd treated him when he showed up. He remembered laying out photographs of the people who'd gone missing at the base, having him listen to a tape recording of a voice (a guy shouting "I want her gone! Understand? I want her outta here!" which made a lot more sense now), and not much else. "What did she do to them?"

"Killed 'em." He said it nonchalantly. Dean guessed that, once you'd been dead for, say, over twenty years, other people dying just lost its effect on you. "She does it slow, draws it out, and makes us help." He sounded bitter, disgusted. "As near as I can tell, it's only for fun. A few of them are still hanging around, but they're absolutely furious, and scared. We tend to stay away from them."

"So...they're dangerous?" Dean asked, feeling his finger tighten on the trigger of his gun before he even realized he was doing it.

"They shouldn't give you any trouble," Colonel Moon replied with a shrug. "They're a bit shy around the living. Private Nakota will take you to the room where the demon killed them, if you're serious about hunting her. Like the Marine was. From there on out, though, you're on your own. We want nothing to do with her."

"Private Nakota...?" Sam had barely asked the question before a guy in outdated fatigues, which features that made it obvious at least one of his parents had been Japanese, flickered into sight next to the colonel's desk. Back ramrod-straight and arms folded neatly in a parade-rest position, he gave Sam and Dean a sharp, polite nod.

"Kill the host if you have to," Colonel Moon said. His tone was grim, but not necessarily concerned. "He's alive, so we have no business with him, but we'll take care of the body if you kill him driving the demon out." He shrugged, and spread his hands. "Whatever it takes."

Dean blinked, feeling a strange expression cross his face, and Sam laughed, incredulous, before exclaiming, " _Kill_ him? Uh...Colonel Moon. Don't you know who the demon's host is?"

"No," he deadpanned, waving off Nakota's curious glance. "I don't really care, either. Just get rid of the demon, all right?"

"But - "

"He said he didn't care, Sam," Dean interrupted quietly, stomping down a sudden, powerful urge to put a comforting hand on his bicep and guide him out of the room. _Don't touch me._ "C'mon. We've got a demon to go after."

"Don't you think he deserves to _know_?" Sam snapped, huge hands clenching into loose fists as he turned to glare at Dean. Dean met his helplessly-furious hazel gaze calmly, because this was the first argument they'd had so far that wasn't about their relationship, or their childhood. It was somehow comforting, but, at the same time, something fragile and childish ached inside him. Knowing that they just didn't have anything like what they used to, and they probably never would again. But he did his best to force himself to be happy with what he had. It definitely beat being yelled at about an attraction he couldn't help.

"No. Not really." Looking away from Sam, Dean shot Nakota a "lead-the-way" gesture. When his brother exhaled forcefully through his nose, the sound conveying frustration and anger, he rolled his eyes. He'd forgotten how freakishly-empathetic Sammy - _can't think of him like that, what's wrong with me_ \- was. Even with monsters. "I'm not sure how much it'd mean to him, even if we told him. Let's just make a really big effort not to murder Lucas and hope it earns us some bonus points in the long run."

Sam cast a glance at Colonel Moon, who appeared to be engaged in a deep conversation with something that, again, they couldn't see. He hadn't noticed what they were talking about, thank God. Dean so didn't want to have to deal with an old Army ghost demanding more information about his possessed son. Hunting, in his opinion, was about killing things that weren't human, not settling down for some sort of teary-eyed soap opera moment with them.

Of course, there were always more of his emotions involved than there should be, when Sam came into play. Fear for him, love, sympathy because he just wasn't quite like Dean and their dad...

But he couldn't afford to be thinking about that. He had to be professional.

So he shoved all of that out of his mind as Nakota led them out of Colonel Moon's office and down the hallway, appearing perfectly stable and normal at just about six feet in front of them, until he spontaneously flickered and jumped like a faulty television set. Dean focused just on making sure Sam wasn't about to walk into some sort of ambush and that nothing was sneaking up on them.

Nakota obviously knew the building like the back of his hand, but, of course, it made sense that he would, since he'd been here for so long with nothing really better to do than explore it. He led them through a spiderweb of halls that got Dean hopelessly confused (so he really hoped that Sam'd been paying more attention than him), pointed out discrete little doors and holes in the walls that they probably never would have picked out on their own, and wove a deft path around the rubble which, when they copied his movements exactly, let them move a whole hell of a lot faster than they had before.

They'd been wandering around all over what felt like the entire building for about half an hour before Nakota paused for a second, spotless boots stilling in a silky pool of ash.

"We're close," he said quietly. His voice was surprisingly deep, considering how slight his build was - almost too slender for a soldier. "I don't feel her anywhere around here, but...you should probably be on your guard. I've seen her move, and she's even faster than us."

Knowing that by "her," he meant the demonic bitch currently running around in Lucas Moon, Dean checked the barrel of his shotgun for any filth that might clog it and get in the way of a spray of rock salt, then just held it at the read. A faceful of salt wouldn't kill Lucas, just so long as the shot was taken from far enough away. It would really hurt the thing in him, though. Sam pumped his own weapon, arming it, and winced when the double click of it echoed just a little too loudly for comfort.

"Just down here - " Nakota took a few steps forward, and Dean moved to follow him, but froze when a voice, male and slightly panicked, echoed down the hall.

"Luke!"

Nakota didn't say a word, just fuzzed out of sight, and Dean swore under his breath. Freaking ghosts. He raised both his gun and his flashlight, aiming both the barrel and the beam at the distant end of the hallway and waiting for something he could shoot at to appear. He glanced at Sam, whose expression was closed down, calm. Focused. He couldn't remember the last time he'd seen him like this.

"Think that's her?" Dean asked under his breath. "Uh...him?" He shook his head. "This whole thing's just weird...why couldn't this demon just possess some girl?"

"I don't think so," Sam replied quietly, apparently deciding to ignore his brother's complaint. "Why would she be running around shouting out the name of her own vessel?"

"Good point." Dean's shotgun snapped up with a faint _click_ of metal as someone wandered into view at the end of the hall He saw red hair, a backpack, a bulky flashlight - not Lucas. But he didn't lower the gun, just started to walk forward, slowly, and shouted, "Federal marshals! Freeze!" in his best "authority" voice.

He was aware of Sam walking beside him, though not as close as he could be. The guy at the end of the hall froze, like he'd been told to, and raised both hands over his head. One was empty, one held a flashlight. Now that they were closer to him, Dean could see that he was in his early thirties, stocky, and absolutely terrified.

"I'm so sorry," he squeaked out. Sam lowered his shotgun and relaxed his stance with a slight, exasperated puff, but Dean didn't. "Please don't arrest me. I didn't mean to break any laws, I - I know I'm not supposed to be in here, but I'm..." He swallowed, loudly. "I'm looking for my partner. Luke Moon."

"Partner?" Dean lowered his gun and cocked his head slightly, just a little confused, the part of his brain that he'd been poisoning with pop culture since he was about six conjuring up vague thoughts about buddy-cop movies. He only got it when Sam coughed, quietly, the sound full of ridiculously-strong, pent-up emotions, and shifted away from him slightly. "Oh. _Oh_." He did his best to resist an urge to look at Sam, to remember, but couldn't quite quell it. He was pretty sure that Sam was glaring at him out of the corners of his eyes. "So you and him are...okay."

The guy was giving him an unimpressed look, his fear fading, and he could almost hear him screaming "Homophobe!" inside his head. He wanted to explain to him that he was the last person who'd criticize him for being in a relationship with another guy, seeing as he'd done something that was considered so much worse, but he guessed that Sam would hit him again if he did.

"Wanna tell us your name?" Sam asked, focusing completely on the guy and (very pointedly) not Dean.

"Cal. Cal O'Neal. _Calvin_ O'Neal." Slowly, he started to lower his hands. When they didn't object, he dropped them completely. "Are you going to arrest me?"

Calvin. That sounded a little familiar. "No. So long as you get your ass out of here right now."

"But - " Calvin glanced at Sam, his expression pleading. He must have already pegged him as the more sympathetic of the two. "I can't. I can't just _leave_ Luke. I know he's in here somewhere, the police haven't done anything for two weeks, I've been looking for him for so long, and I'm not leaving without him...please." Sam looked a little uncomfortable, Dean noticed. His kneejerk response was to move closer to him, provide silent support, but he clamped down on that. "He means absolutely everything to me. I have to find him."

"We'll find him," Sam promised. "We think we know where he is - "

"What?! You do?!"

" - but it'll be dangerous."

"And, obviously, no offense to you, but we can't have untrained civilians running around underfoot while we're trying to do this," Dean added. He'd relaxed slightly, but he could tell that Calvin was still afraid of him. He kind of had that effect on people. He wasn't quite sure why they always picked him out as the scary one, since his partners - Dad, Sam - were bigger than he was.

"I'll stay out of the way." Calvin's mouth worked, like he was chewing on the inside of his lip. "C'mon. We've been together for almost ten years. Let me help you find him." He glanced back and forth between them. "Was he kidnapped? What did you mean when you said it'll be dangerous?"

"We're not exactly allowed to tell you that - " Dean began, because he figured that telling him his boyfriend was currently possessed by a sadistic demon wouldn't go over well.

"I'm begging you here!" Calvin spread his hands pleadingly. "Please..."

"Yeah, okay, that's it." Dean exhaled forcefully, then turned to Sam, who avoided his eyes. "Cuff him."

"No! Wait!" he practically yelped. Dean glanced at him with a raised eyebrow, waiting. "I...I'll go."

He pushed past them, shoulders hunched, looking about half his actual age. Dean didn't feel bad. They'd helped him, after all; it was for his own good.

He paused for a second, and glanced up at them. "I'm waiting outside. You can't stop me from doing that...and you had better have Luke with you when you come back out."

Dean watched him go, eyebrows drawn together, because he wasn't sure if he'd just been threatened by a guy who was, like, two feet shorter than him, or not. He was broken out of his thoughts by Sam's low, quiet voice.

"Think Nakota's coming back?" he asked, all the awkwardness that had just passed between them absent from his voice.. Dean shook his head.

"We'd better start looking for a pile of bodies," he replied. "He said we were close, so..." With a shrug, he made for the nearest doorway. "...let's see what's behind door number one."

The answer turned out to be rows and rows of blackened bunks. As they walked through them, carefully sweeping the beams of their flashlights under each one, Dean cleared his throat. He knew that saying what he wanted to was a really, _really_ bad idea, and almost definitely violated whatever agreement had sprung up between them. But he couldn't stop himself. He hurt too bad, wanted too much. He absolutely had to bring the whole thing up again, even if it caused a fight.

"So. That Calvin guy," he started.

"Dean," Sam said, a low warning note in his voice. He had apparently picked up on something in his tone, and decided he didn't want to hear what was coming. Dean ignored him.

"He was really determined to find his partner," he went on.

"Don't." It sounded like he was gritting his teeth.

"He must have really loved him. He's been gone for weeks, but he's still looking for him. Still coming after him. He pretty much refused to leave until we forced him." He paused. "Real loyal. They must have had something special, and he doesn't want to lose that.

There was a slight creaking noise, and Dean glanced down at Sam's hand. His tanned knuckles had gone white, as he clenched the handle of his flashlight hard enough to make the plastic casing start to crack. He was looking firmly away when he answered, and his voice was so quiet Dean could barely hear him.

"He said they'd been together for ten years." Dean wanted to move closer, in order to better make out what he was saying, but he figured he'd pushed his luck enough for right now. "So they decided on a relationship when they were both responsible, consenting adults. Not when they were _five_ and _ten_." He almost flinched at how bitter he sounded. "And they weren't brothers. They didn't have the same parents, they weren't raised together, they weren't trusted by their dad to take care of each other."

The mention of their father sparked a tiny flicker of fear and guilt in Dean's chest, but he didn't say a thing.

"What Lucas and Calvin had - have - isn't illegal. Or wrong on every level." Sam straightened so much it looked a little painful, and aimed his flashlight under a nearby bed. "They're totally different from us. And you'd better drop it, or I'm walking out right now."

It hurt. It stung, and ached, and throbbed, deep inside him, hearing that. But it didn't feel quite as bad as it might've.

"Okay. Sure thing."

Because he was sure he'd heard hesitation in Sam's voice, and guilt, and longing - and he was going to hang onto that with everything he had.


	9. Chapter Nine

"See anything?" Dean asked quietly, crouching down to peer underneath a bunk as he swept the beam of his flashlight under it.

"No." A ways away, facing firmly (if the last five minutes were any indication of the present) in the opposite direction from him, Sam paused, the crunching of his boots in the cinders fading for a second. "Can you stop asking me that every couple of minutes? You're _right here_ \- you'll see something just as soon as I do."

"Okay. Sorry." He raised both eyebrows, even though he knew Sam couldn't see his expression, and straightened up. A cord scraped against his neck: the one that the amulet he kept under his shirt hung on. He'd have to be careful about it when they actually found this demon and started fighting with her - he'd been wearing it so long that it was easy to forget about it until something grabbed onto it during a brawl and tried to strangle him with it. "Guess I'm just a little impatient for this hunt to be over. I'm sure you can relate."

When Sam exhaled loudly through his nose, he regretted tacking that last sentence on there, even though he'd said it without so much as a whisper of hesitation. Maybe he'd offended him. If he had, he felt like punching himself in the face, because he really couldn't afford to do anything like that, not after he'd made the massive mistake of acting on his emotional urges and bringing up their relationship. Again. Even after they'd agreed not to talk about t anymore for the sake of the case and finding Dad.

But, weirdly enough, he didn't regret it. Even though it'd made Sam all prickly and standoffish again. It'd been so beyond worth it to hear that little shadow of what they used to have in his brother's voice.

Sam had apparently chosen not to reply to him, because he was moving again, the beam of his flashlight tracing a slow, simple pattern across the rubble-strewn floor. The light looked like it was dimming a little, as did Dean's own, which worried him a little. He had extra batteries in the duffel bag slung across his back, but he didn't want the demon to show up while they were switching them out. He didn't really like the idea of having to replace flashlight batteries in the middle of a fight, either. Jesus, they had about a million of these things in the arsenal in the back of the Impala; he should've brought more. Never mind the fact that they were the kind cops used, with parts of the casing made of heavy metal, and it would have been hell on his shoulders to carry around a couple of those in addition to everything else he already had in his duffel.

Raising the now-slightly-darker beam of his flashlight to the back wall of the good-sized room they were in, he saw bunks...bunks...a massive crack that looked like it'd been letting rainwater seep through it for years but wasn't wide enough for men their size to squeeze through...bunks...a door. Closed and completely unmarked except for a handprint that looked like it had been burned into the gray paint covering the metal. Streaks of sulfur stood out like yellow neon against the black and gray.

"Sam," Dean called, just because he was closer. Sam glanced at him briefly, a bitterly-annoyed expression that Dean chose to ignore crossing his face. He jerked his head in the direction of the door, indicating it by waggling the beam of his flashlight over the surface.

Reluctantly, Sam went over to it, stepping into the circle of light that Dean was keeping aimed at the door. He tried the handle, and, with an ominous creak of metal, it fell off in his hand. He turned and waved it at Dean, who just shrugged at his unimpressed expression.

"Want me to come over and kick it in for you?" he called. Sam rolled his eyes, turning back to the door, then raised a booted foot and slammed it into the metal. Dean tried not to notice how the muscles of his thigh flexed and rippled under the denim that covered them, and tried not to remember how it'd felt to have those long legs hooked over his hips. Pulling him closer and deeper while Sam's fingernails dug deep crescents in the skin of his shoulders and he gasped out his name.

The door shuddered open in a cloud of ash and dust as Dean forcibly yanked his mind away from that line of thinking, and Sam immediately took a huge step backwards, throwing one arm up over his nose and mouth, all but burying his face in the sleeve of his hoodie as he screwed his eyes shut and turned away. The smell that had spooked him hit Dean a second later - rotting flesh, musty blood, human suffering. He grimaced and cupped a hand over his nose, but it was more of a reflexive motion than one he actually needed. He still hated this kind of stench, of course, but he'd gotten used to it a long time ago. Sam must have gone soft in his two years off the job, if it bothered him this much.

"Want me to get you a bucket or something?" Dean asked casually, coming up beside him and dropping his hand from his nose without even thinking about it. Now that the initial shock had faded, he was just fine. "C'mon, Sammy - uh - Sam. Sam. I'm sorry." Embarrassed by his knee-jerk use of the nickname his brother apparently hated, and suddenly intensely aware of the tension that he had to have just spawned, he glanced away and rubbed the back of his neck. "...sorry."

Sam dropped his arm and took a deep breath - through his mouth - then gagged a little. With smells this thick and awful, you could usually taste them, too. Dean looked at him with carefully-disguised sympathy, his own veteran stomach feeling a little unsettled.

"I guess..." Sam hesitated, trailing off. He made very, _very_ brief eye contact with Dean, obviously troubled. "It's...well, it's not that big of a deal." He swallowed, looking away. "Obviously, don't call me that, but, y'know, if you slip up for a second, if it comes out, you don't have to get so freaked out over it. You don't need to grovel like that."

 _Thought you_ liked _me to beg, every once in awhile._ Dean bit down on that and the suggestive smirk that would have gone with it, feeling an ache in his chest. He had no idea where the sudden urge to flirt with him had come from, but he knew he couldn't act on it. Even though this tiny little barrier between them had just been torn down.

"Well, okay, then," he said with a shrug. He raised his shotgun, and looked into the darkness past the doorway. "If you're sure."

"I just want to get rid of this demon," Sam said quietly, apparently by way of explanation. Dean paused before beelining for the source of that awful smell, glancing back at him.

"And find Dad, right?" he asked, keeping his tone light and gentle. Sam sighed, for what seemed like the millionth time so far, and ran a hand over his face.

"Colonel Moon told us that Dad left," he pointed out. "He's probably been gone for awhile, which means we're obviously not going to find him today."

"Right...and you have to go back to Stanford tonight." He smiled at him, but it hurt a little. Sam looked back, hazel eyes tired and resigned.

"Don't start this again," he said, shaking his head slightly.

"Okay." Dean's voice was quiet when he said it. He didn't want a fight - not here, not now, when they were in so much danger. "I wasn't trying to. Sorry." Hoping to move past the awkwardness, he cleared his throat, loudly. "Y'know, we need a plan before we go charging in there. How are we going to get rid of this demon?"

"Uh..." Sam rubbed a hand up through his hair, obviously thinking. "Well - "

"I swear, if you say we're gonna splash holy water on her until she skedaddles..." he warned, shaking his head. "I was joking when I suggested that earlier."

"I know, I know." Frowning, Sam was silent for a couple of minutes, then suddenly looked at him (very carefully avoiding his eyes, Dean noticed) and snapped his fingers. "Dad had us memorize an exorcism ritual awhile back."

"When was this?" Dean asked blankly. He didn't remember anything like that.

"Right after that last demon hunt. When he...uh...left us all alone together..." He glanced away, rubbing the back of his neck, and Dean suppressed a sigh. "Anyway. I still remember it. At least, part of it. I think I do."

"You _think_?" Dean asked skeptically.

"I _know_ ," Sam amended. "I remember the important parts, at least, and I can probably fill in everything else." He shrugged, but there was a hint of pride in his voice as he added, "I'm taking a couple of Latin courses. Knew they'd come in handy."

"Whatever you say, Caesar." Dean resisted the urge to roll his eyes, because this was obviously something that mattered to him. At least a little bit. "You'd just better not choke. If you forget what you're supposed to say, then..." He grimaced at the thought that had just crossed his mind. "I guess a host's not much use to a demon if it's banged up enough. Like, limbs missing, or - ick - head..."

"Yeah. Let's hope it doesn't come to that." Sam looked a little green. "Don't worry. I remember it."

"Good enough for me. C'mon." He pumped his shotgun, just to be safe, and jerked his head towards the doorway. "Let's go be heroes."

\--------------------------------------------------

They found a whole lot of bodies, most disassembled into at least two pieces; some arcane-looking symbols scrawled out onto the concrete walls in a sticky mixture of blood and sulfur; a couple terrified, rapidly-flickering ghosts that Sam tried (and miserably failed) to calm down a little. Just a lot of horrible stuff that Dean couldn't help but feel was some sort of bizarre decorating, an attempt to nest or roost, and maybe make this base feel a little more like home. Wherever home was for a demon abroad. Hell or some other place (because he knew that, sometimes, things didn't match their most common legends). The whole place, as they moved slowly through it with their guns at the ready, was a nightmare - so, basically, exactly what he'd expected.

"How long've we been in here?" Sam asked after awhile. He was holding up a whole lot better than Dean had expected, after his reaction to the smell.

"Dunno." Dean aimed his flashlight at his watch, a cheap, black rubber-and-plastic analogue thing he'd picked up at Walgreen's about five years back, after the corrosive blood of something-or-other ate his old one. "An hour, maybe? Two?" He tapped his flashlight against the plastic bubble that covered the face of his watch. But the hands, which were frozen behind it, stayed totally still. "I think those ghosts screwed with my watch."

"They could've killed the battery..." Sam shrugged, looking away. "I mean, we know that most spirits have their own electromagnetic fields, which might - "

"Wow, that sounds really super-interesting and all, but I'm afraid I'm gonna have to take a rain check here," Dean interrupted. He definitely remembered how chatty Sam could get if you let him really get into all the quirky scientific properties of monsters, and, while he'd be ecstatic to listen to him for hours once they got out of here, he didn't think that it would be a good idea right now. "Just tell me if you see any sign of that Lucy bitch."

"Uh." Sam paused, right next to a shoe that may or may not have a severed foot in it. Noticing it, he grimaced, but didn't move away. "...who?"

"Our demon. She needed a name. Her host's name is Lucas, but we can't call her that, because she's not him. So...Lucas, Lucy. It makes sense." He shrugged. "Doesn't it?"

Sam made a face. "'Lucy'?"

"Well, what did _you_ plan on calling her?" Dean challenged, fighting a smile because this was just so easy and there was no tension or resentment at all. Right now, right here, it felt almost like the old days. Not quite, but almost.

"Just...'the demon', I guess." Sam shrugged again and turned away, his tone light but a little distant. Dean's heart sank a little, as he picked that out.

"You could be just a little more - " he started, but he was interrupted by a sudden yell as Sam's feet left the floor, his torso in the grip of something neither of them could see. He whirled towards him, a snarl twisting his mouth as he looked for whatever was doing this, and when Sam gave a pained grunt as he slammed into the nearest wall, he felt it like a knife to his heart. "Sammy!"

"Dean - " Unbelievably, there was a quick flicker of irritation in his hazel eyes - _really? Is this_ really _the time?_ \- but then he glanced behind him, and they widened.

Dean whirled around just in time to see Lucas Moon, hair tangled with ash and sulfur, face spattered with gore and arms a rusty brown all the way up to the elbows with dried blood. One hand was outstretched, aimed at Sam, and his gray eyes were half-lidded in an almost-lazy expression.

"I like 'Lucy' better than 'the demon'," he said, voice deep and mellow. "But not much."

He flattened his palm, and, behind Dean, Sam cried out a little. Dean didn't hesitate for so much as a second before swinging his shotgun up and blasting Lucas in the chest.

He screamed as dozens of tiny, ragged holes, thinly ringed with blood, appeared in his green T-shirt and the force of the shot made him jerk backward slightly. The noise sounded just a little too high-pitched and feminine for Dean to be comfortable with it coming out of his mouth. His hand dropped, and, judging by the thud and groan from behind Dean, so did Sam. His first instinct was to spin around, run right to his side and make sure he wasn't hurt, and it was so strong it was nearly painful, but he kept his gun trained on Lucas. He hoped to God that neither he nor the demon possessing him knew enough about guns to figure out that he'd just used up the one shot he had.

Lucas raked a clawlike hand across his chest, where steam was streaming out of the tiny wounds, and he snarled. When he looked up at Dean, his eyes were a solid black. Dean raised one eyebrow, thinking of black smoke, but didn't comment.

"Sam?" he called, without turning his head or taking his eyes off the demon. "Anything broken? Bleeding?"

"No," Sam gasped, and Dean heard him struggle to his feet. "I'm okay."

"Mind getting over here, then?" He adjusted his empty gun, handling it as if he had another shot left. Teeth bared and shoulders hunched inward, around his wounded chest, Lucas glared at him with black eyes, motionless. He really had to start thinking of him as a her - Lucy - since Lucas Moon obviously wasn't pulling the strings. But it was just sort of difficult, faced with broad shoulders and lean limbs and an unmistakably-male face. Dark hair, dark eyes, pretty tall, built - for an older guy, Luke would totally be his type, if those dark eyes didn't come from demonic possession.

Dark hair, dark eyes. Now he was thinking about Sam again, in a way that was entirely inappropriate for the situation. Pretty tall, built. Great. He really had to stop keeping his brain in his dick...and his heart.

"Grab your gun," he ordered Sam, watching Lucas - Lucy - as she apparently assessed the situation. "There's a thing of salt in my bag - dig it out, make a circle around her, and then we can get this show on the road."

"Give me a minute." Sam's boots crunched heavily over the debris on the floor, way too much of it grisly and horrifying, as Dean knew.

"We don't really _have_ a minute, Samm - " He caught himself just in time. "We don't really have a minute, Sam. Our demonic cross-dresser is looking a little impatient over here.

As if to illustrate his words, Lucy straightened up, pulling her torn shirt tight across her chest without any hint of pain. Her eyes glittered in the light of Dean's flashlight, which he kept trained squarely on her face. He raised the barrel of the shotgun slightly, with a clicking of metal.

"You make any move at all, and I'll aim a lot higher next time," he said with a quick smile, hearing Sam stoop once behind him to pick up his gun, then again, probably for his flashlight. He'd dropped both when the demon threw him against a wall.

"Yeah." She grinned, stretching Lucas's mouth way too wide. Dean felt his face twitch into a small grimace of the disgust he felt for everything he hunted. "No way. At this range...the salt would go through his eyes. Maybe even his skull." Her grin widened, and she gestured to her eyes with a long-fingered hand. "Kill him instantly. And you're hunters, aren't you? Protectors of human life, mankind's first and only line of defense against the darkness?" Dean felt Sam unzip his bag and dig through it, and his warm breath ghosted across the back of his neck. He wanted to lean back, feel Sam's strong chest against his back and his arms around him in a gentle embrace. He was also extremely aware of just how close to his ass those big hands of his were, but he did his best to focus on more important stuff. "You won't take the chance that you might kill the guy I'm wearing...will you?"

"Don't be so sure, sweetheart." Sam zipped his bag back up, and finally moved into his line of sight, looking disheveled and more than a little shell-shocked. He was carrying his gun in one hand and the canister of salt that Dean had told him about in the other, with his flashlight tucked up under one arm. He paused, looking at Lucy warily, but she didn't seem very interested in him. Dean nodded to him slightly, telling him to get going without saying a word. "I wouldn't underestimate just how much I want your smoky ass outta here."

"Ooh," she said, narrowing her eyes at him. "So _angry_. The first one wasn't like that, you know; he just scoped the place out and left. I liked him. You, though...hey, what did I ever do to you?"

"You've been killing people," Dean said with a shrug. Sam shook out a thin line of salt onto the floor and started to draw a clumsy circle around Lucy and her host, making absolute sure that there were no breaks in it. She glanced at him, mildly interested, and Dean wondered if she understood what he was doing. "You kidnapped a guy. You're squatting someplace with about a million 'no trespassing' signs tacked onto it...y'know, even normal, vanilla people don't look too kindly on any of that." He shook his head slightly, his focus completely taken up with keeping her looking at him. So she didn't throw Sam into another wall and screw up his circle, or - way more importantly - hurt him. He didn't have to worry, looked like; she glanced over at Sam again, and just rolled her eyes at his endeavors. He looked up at her, eyes dark and frightened and guarded. "But, of course, _they_ wouldn't know or care that you're not human, you're a monster, or that you're some black-eyed bitch of a smoke cloud. And I do." His lips twitched into something that wasn't quite a smile. "I'm not afraid to admit I hate you for what you are."

She studied him, face impassive and head cocked to the side. Those creepy all-black eyes roved over the line of his brow, his eye sockets, his cheekbones, his chin. He glared back. She blinked, and the black vanished from Lucas Moon's gray eyes with a sound like an insect retracting its wings under its shell. Then she cocked her head to the other side, still looking at him, and a slow smile spread across her stolen face. Dean didn't like that.

"Are you sure you don't hate me because I touched him?" Lucy whispered. Suddenly, her hand, curled into a claw, jerked up, and so did Sam. His eyes were bulging and his mouth was open, like something had him by the throat, and his body was ram-rod straight because he had no choice. Dean gritted his teeth and pulled the trigger of his gun, nothing mattering to him in that instant but helping him. He felt like an invisible hand was around his own throat.

The hammer fell on an empty chamber, obviously, because the one shot that he'd had was buried superficially in Lucas's chest. Lucy's smile morphed into a vicious grin, and, with what looked like a huge effort, she drew her arm back and flung Sam across the room. The grin dissolved into a grunt of exertion as she did. He didn't go as far this time, didn't hit any walls, but the agonized, shocked sound that he made when he slammed into the debris-strewn ground with a heavy _thud_ ignited immediate rage somewhere in Dean's chest cavity.

Lucy was drooping a little, looking exhausted, like it had been unbelievably difficult for her to throw Sam. So she didn't have time to react when Dean strode forward, swung the barrel of his shotgun across her throat, and grabbed both ends from behind, choking her and forcing her to the ground. He wasn't sure if depriving her of air would do a whole lot of good, her being a demon and all, but there was iron in the steel of the barrel, and iron burned. Her hands twitched as he hauled back viciously on the gun as she gagged and sputtered, and he felt faint tugging at his clothes and limbs. But it didn't come anywhere near to him being ripped off of her.

"What's the matter, can't get it up?" he snarled. "Forgot your little blue pill at home?" He drove a knee into her back, and her legs weakened, making it so more of her weight pressed down on the gun in his hands. "You _bitch,_ he didn't do a damn thing to you, how fucking _dare_ you hurt him like that - "

With tremendous force, Lucy reached up and yanked the gun out of his grip, then hissed and hurled it away as steam rose from her hands and throat. When she glanced over her shoulder at him, eyes black again, he didn't hesitate before punching her in the mouth so hard he felt the skin on his knuckles split open.

She collapsed down into the ash that covered the floor, looking stunned, and Dean pulled off his duffel bag and flung it aside before dropping into a crouch. Lucy's eyes focused on him, and she smiled to expose Lucas's blood-webbed teeth.

"Almost the exact same cheekbones," she murmured. "He's your brother, isn't he?" She tilted her head to look back at Sam, who was, slowly and painfully, getting to his feet. Blood streaked his face from a wound up past his hairline, and, seeing that, Dean's anger flared even hotter.

"You shut up," he warned.

Lucy blinked - again with the insect-wing noise - and her eyes were gray and human. She studied him, muttering, "But the feelings you have for him..."

"I told you to shut up." Dean leaned over to pick up a handful of salt. He whipped an unintentional mixture of salt and soot into Lucy's face, and felt a deep, vindictive satisfaction when her body arched and she howled in pain. But then she grinned savagely at him in sudden understanding, chest heaving, eyes so black they almost glowed with their own impossible anti-light, and spoke.

"You sick, twisted, monstrous man," she wheezed out. "So. Did you rape him, or was he your willing slut?"

Dean didn't think before hitting her again, the salt on her face making the cuts on his knuckles sting. He clipped Lucas's cheekbone and knocked Lucy back down, then slammed into his temple with his other hand, and drove a knee into a surprisingly-yielding stomach as he punched her in the mouth again. But Lucy was laughing.

"Are you the older one?" She grinned with split lips. "Did he trust his big brother to take care of him, and you took advantage of that, made him your sex toy before he was even old enough to understand it? Or did he beg for it?"

"You don't talk about him like that." His bleeding fist smashed into her again, making Lucas's head snap to one side. "And I thought I told you to shut up."

Lucy's eyes opened just a slit, and she smiled.

"Freak," she hissed. "Sodomist. Incestuous abomi - "

Dean's hands locked around her neck, cutting off the rest of the word into a gag. He felt his face twitch with the unbearable rage he was feeling.

"Shut," he snarled through gritted teeth, "up."

He knew that what he was doing was hurting her host a whole hell of a lot more than it was actually hurting the demon herself, but he didn't care. Every time he thought about letting go, he saw Sam's face twist with pain when he slammed into that wall, heard the thud as he hit the floor. And his hands just tightened. Lucy choked, and Lucas's windpipe creaked a little underneath his fingers.

"Dean."

Sam's voice, pretty much the only thing that could reach him right now, made him pause a little. Lucy sucked in a tiny, tortured breath.

"Dean!"

He sounded panicked, urgent, and, slowly, Dean started to let go. Then a hand grabbed his shoulder and hauled him up and back, and he blinked, feeling exactly like he was waking up from a deep sleep except for the fact that he was exhausted.

"You were gonna kill him!" Sam let go of him, and he saw his face, streaked with blood and ash and definitely excited, but not necessarily angry. "I don't - I don't think you were actually hurting the demon...I'm pretty sure you were just strangling Lucas."

Dean, breathing hard, shrugged with a tiny smile. "She was choking, wasn't she?"

"I..." Sam started to say something, but trailed off, as his eyes dropped from Dean's face down onto his upper chest. Dean wasn't paying too much attention to him, so he didn't notice. He was looking at the crooked circle of salt that he'd just barely been dragged over without damaging. Sam must have finished it while he was beating the crap out of Lucy, trapping her inside.

"Okay." He looked at Sam, and motioned with one bleeding hand. "C'mon. Let's get rid of her."

Sam nodded wordlessly, eyes still fixed on something on Dean's chest, but he coughed to clear his throat of ash other gunk so he could speak clearly.

Lucy struggled into an upright position right before Sam said the first Latin word of the exorcism that would send her back to Hell, and she screamed. It was practically music to Dean's ears. Sam's face was completely impassive while he chanted over a period of forty-five minutes, sometimes stumbling or forgetting or improvising but always going on, but he did step back and look a little weirded out when Lucy's host fell to his knees and black smoke boiled out of his mouth. Lucas collapsed limply while a black cloud twisted and writhed above him, and then it billowed out of the salt circle, sweeping downwards and away.

"Sayonara, bitch," Dean said, flipping a tiny salute as the smoke streamed past him with what almost sounded like a shriek. It was gone within seconds, and he had a feeling that it wouldn't come near this area ever again, even if it did manage to claw its way back out of Hell (could they do that?). It might even think twice before possessing another human. He hoped.

They roused a groggy, confused Lucas, who wanted to know why his face, chest, and throat hurt, and why there was dried blood all over his arms, and why his mouth tasted like sulfur. He seemed like a nice enough guy, if more than a little whiny, but Dean was willing to forgive him for that after what he'd been through. Even if he definitely wasn't going to explain anything to him, for his own sake.

While escorting Lucas out through the confusing maze of hallways, no ghosts really appeared to them. At least, not more than once.

Colonel Moon flickered into sight right in front of them (Lucas choked suddenly, eyes bugging out), and saluted smartly before tossing a scarred, leather-bound book into the ashes at their feet. A book that looked familiar, and Dean's heart jolted as he stooped to pick it up. Dad's journal.

"My men and I are extremely grateful to you," he said, ignoring Lucas even as he stared, open-mouthed, at him. He looked back and forth between Sam and Dean. "The Marine left that here...with instructions to give it to those who followed him." He grimaced a little. "He wasn't much of a writer, but I assume he meant you."

And then he was gone, leaving Lucas to shakily rasp out, "...Dad?"

"Not really," Dean said, clapping a hand onto his shoulder as he held onto the journal with his knuckles white. "C'mon. Let's get you out of here before those gunshot wounds get infected."

After that, he kept seeing flickers of ghosts out of the corners of his eyes. Colonel Moon, Nakota, and a couple other soldier types, all saluting. As someone who didn't usually receive a lot of recognition or thanks for his work, he had to admit that it felt good. Good enough for him to hand Lucas over to Calvin with nothing more than a tired smile, even when the little guy accused them of shoddy policework and threatened to sue them for the condition that they'd brought his boyfriend back in. Lucas calmed him down, though, while looking at the Winchesters with troubled gray eyes, Dean wondered just how much he remembered. For his sake, he hoped that it wasn't much.

They made a beeline back to where the car was parked once Calvin's back was turned, trusting him to get Lucas to a hospital. To be honest, Dean didn't care even if he just took him home - his responsibility ended the second that everyone in his general vicinity was no longer in danger from anything supernatural. Before hopping the fence, he paused to stretch under the mid-afternoon sun, aware of every aching muscle and grain of ash, but just enjoying the warmth anyway. He also felt the slight weight of his amulet against his sternum, even through the fabric of his T-shirt, and realized that it must have fallen out of its usual place during the fight and swung loose. That was what Sam had been staring at. Was still staring at, actually, he saw when he opened his eyes. Sam spoke before he could ask the obvious question.

"So. You still have it," he said quietly, and there was no question what he was talking about. He didn't sound angry. A little lost, maybe, a little confused or awed, but not angry. "You still wear it."

"Every day." Dean laced his fingers together in preparation to give his brother a boost up. "I can't focus on anything at all unless I have it around my neck."

Sam didn't put a foot in his joined hands. "It...really means that much to you?"

"Of course it does. It always has." Dean could feel Sam's small, eight-year-old hands slipping the cord over his head, then pausing to cup either side of his face to kiss him. He remembered laughing, pulling the tiny, fragile, warm body of his precious baby brother closer, to hold him tight. It'd been another Christmas with Dad AWOL, hunting or holed up with some lonely woman or maybe just drunk, but he'd had Sam. "It's the most important thing I have, anymore."

_Because you gave it to me. Because I love you like I have never loved anyone or anything else, and never will. Because it's like carrying a little piece of you with me wherever you go...but, hell, it can't compare to your touch or your presence or your voice. Not at all._

He didn't add that, even though it immediately popped into his head.

Sam was looking at him with something unreadable in his eyes, something soft and familiar that made Dean hope for what he couldn't have. He was pretty close to figuring out what it was when he asked, "Why do you keep it under your shirt?"

Dean shrugged, a little uncomfortable. "Well, I don't wanna lose it, or have something grab onto it while I'm fighting. It's easier for me to keep it safe this way."

Sam looked away, expression gentler than it'd been around him in days, but he didn't say anything. Dean flexed his hands.

"So," he prompted. "Ready to go?"

"Yeah...I can do it myself." Sam waved away his hands, stepping forward to hook his fingers through the wire loops of the fence. He looked up at the top, then sighed. "In a minute." He turned around and leaned his back heavily against the fence, putting a hand on his head as he bowed it. Dean walked over to him.

"Your head hurt?" he asked. Sam nodded, closing his eyes.

"Is it still bleeding?" he asked, opening them. Dean hesitated. Sam's long fingers were buried in his ash-matted hair, but on the wrong side of his head for him to lift it so he could see the wound. And he wasn't making any move. His hazel eyes were perfectly steady.

Very, very slowly, Dean raised a hand, and reached for Sam's face until his fingertips brushed the fringe of hair that fell over his forehead. Sam stiffened slightly under his touch, eyes fixed on nothing and mouth working like he was chewing on the inside of his lip, but he didn't shove him away. Encouraged, Dean gently swept his hair aside, to expose pale, tender skin and a shallow, oozing gash. He could feel Sam's heat against his hand, and his hair was so amazingly soft under the ash.

"Nah," he said softly, fully aware of how husky his voice was. "Looks like it's closing up." Very lightly, he rested his fingertips on Sam's temple, and felt him shudder a little. He didn't realize he was leaning in until his little brother's clean, masculine scent cut through the soot and the sweat. "Sam..." Dean hesitated. His lips were chapped, but Sam's looked soft and pink and full. "I was so worried about you."

Sam's eyes fluttered closed, and a tiny sigh puffed out of him. Dean felt like something was squeezing his heart, but it felt good. He probably would've moved his hand around to cup the back of his head, and kissed him right then and there no matter what, if he hadn't suddenly reached up to gently grip his wrist. Slowly, he pulled his hand off his head and let it go, before turning his face away and murmuring, "Don't touch me."

There was no anger behind it, no conviction. He might as well have been reading off a page.

With the moment over, they scaled the fence, and Dean unlocked the Impala. After putting the guns, flashlights, and Dad's journal, which they couldn't be bothered to look at right now, into the arsenal, as well as all the weaponry in his duffel bag (he didn't want anything going off in the back seat while he was driving), he tossed it into the back seat and opened the driver's door. He hesitated before getting in.

"Want me to take you back to Stanford now?" he asked. Sam, mirroring his position on the other side of the car, shook his hair out of his eyes and squinted at him.

"Uh. Right now?" he asked.

"Sure." Dean shrugged. "I mean, I can get you there in..." He glanced at his watch, saw that it was still dead, and scowled through a muttered curse. "Not very long."

"Well, all my stuff is back at the motel," he pointed out. "And I'd kinda like to shower and get something to eat. I just fought a demon."

"I fought a demon," Dean corrected. "You got thrown around by a demon and then yelled Latin at it."

Sam rolled his eyes. "I'm filthy and I'm starving. Gimme a break."

"All right, all right, we'll get you a shower and a burger." He ducked into the car. "But we'd better leave right after that, if you wanna get back in time to get a good night's sleep before your interview."

When Sam climbed into the passenger seat, but didn't say a thing, Dean glanced over at him. "You do want that, right?"

"I..." A tiny, strained smile flickered across his face, and he didn't make eye contact. "I don't know." He looked over at him. "We still haven't found Dad."

"That doesn't have to be your problem," Dean pointed out, shaking his head. Sam looked away again.

"I'm not sure you should take me back just yet." He swallowed. "Look, I'll just...I'll think about it."

"Okay." Dean started the car. "In the end, it's your call."

He knew that this really didn't mean anything, and he shouldn't be nearly as excited as he was. But he couldn't help it.

\-------------------------------------------------

Sam rubbed a hand up through his still-damp hair, cell phone pressed to his ear and feet bare on the stubbly carpet of the motel room. In one ear, he heard the electronic ringing of another phone. In the other, he heard running water as Dean showered. He knew that it was going to take a while, because it'd taken him a while to feel totally clean. He still felt like there was ash rubbing between his jeans and T-shirt and his skin. So, he had plenty of time to do this.

The ringing finally stopped, as the person on the other end picked up. Jess's voice was like balm on his frayed nerves as she answered.

"Sam?" she asked, her voice perky. Good; he hadn't woken her up this time. "Hi! Is everything going okay?" There was a pause, and he imagined her glancing at the nearest clock. "Are you on your way home?"

"Hey, Jess." He felt a sheepish, broken smile on his face, even though he knew she couldn't see it. "Actually...no, I'm not."

"You might want to hurry - it's getting kind of late." The words were perfectly casual, but there was an edge of worry to them. She must have picked up on something in his tone. Which wasn't surprising, considering how well she knew him...how much she cared about him. The feeling was completely mutual, which was why he dreaded explaining this to her.

"Jess..." He ran a hand through his hair again as he started to pace next to his bed, the carpet rough as sandpaper against his feet. He was way too aware of the muffled sound of water hitting the linoleum floor of the shower in the bathroom. Dean was completely naked, every muscle outlined in glittering water, only yards away from him. He felt his cock twitch involuntarily in his clean boxers at the thought, and gritted his teeth. Wrong, wrong, wrong...he was talking to his girlfriend. He had to focus on her. It was way more normal that way. "I don't think I'm going to make it home in time for the interview." He rubbed a hand over his face as he said it, closing his eyes.

She was quiet for a long time. Sam couldn't help but see her in their kitchen, leaning against the counter with her arms and ankles crossed and her lower lip being slowly worried between her teeth. The image was so vivid it startled him - he could pick out the faded patches on the skinny jeans he imagined her to be wearing, the creases of her T-shirt where it stretched over her breasts, the polish on her toenails.

"Your dad's still missing, huh?" she finally said. Her voice was soft and sympathetic, not angry or confused at all, and he was overwhelmed by a sudden swell of love.

"Yeah. Yeah, he is." He lowered himself onto the bed, the mattress creaking under his weight.

"And you want to find him, of course you do," Jess said gently. Sam didn't correct her, even though it was less of a "want to" thing and more of an obligation. His father could've hurt him badly, when he saw what he was doing with Dean. He could've thrown him out. But he hadn't, and Sam figured he owed him something for that. "Have you told your brother you don't want to go home yet? What does he think?"

Sam thought of Dean's fingertips on his temple, the touch incredibly tender, as he said, "He's offered to drive me home. He told me that this whole thing doesn't have to be my problem, but..." He hesitated. "Jess. You remember what I told you about him, right?"

"That you two don't get along?"

"No. That he needs me, because he's not used to flying solo." He swallowed. "I can't...I can't leave him right now. Not until we find our dad." He sighed deeply. "I'm so sorry."

"Sam...sweetheart." Jess only used pet names with him when she sensed he needed a lot of extra comfort. Otherwise, she knew that he thought it just felt cheap, because he'd told her. He left out that it'd stemmed from the fact that Dean had rarely called him anything but "Sammy" during sex. He'd only used names like "baby boy" and "little brother" and "kiddo" every once in awhile. "Don't apologize, okay? They're your family - I get it. And you've got the next best thing to a four-point-oh GPA. Stanford'd have to be crazy not to let you reschedule your interview."

"You really think so?" he asked softly.

"I really do. Do you want to call them yourself to cancel, or would it be easier if I did?"

"No. No, don't worry, Jess, I can do it." He laughed, humorlessly. "They're going to be furious."

"Well, forget them. It's a family emergency, you don't have a choice." She paused. "Maybe you should talk to the police, though. If you don't find your dad in a couple of days."

"I'm not real sure they'd be able to help." John Winchester wasn't exactly on the right side of the law. Or even registered with it, since about 1984.

"Well...if you say so." Jess sounded a little troubled. "I miss you."

"I miss you, too. So much," he replied.

"Call me every day?" she asked.

"I will. I promise." He turned away from the bathroom door, closing his eyes.

"Take care of your brother," she told him. "I really think you care about him a lot more than you think you do."

Sam swallowed again, feeling something shift uncomfortably inside him when he thought about Dean and, then, the amulet. It had stayed in his mind ever since he saw it swinging around Dean's neck, the bronze catching the harsh sunlight and burning an image on his retinas. He'd been thinking about it while he showered. Even though Dean had been in the next room, he hadn't been afraid. He'd locked the door, but he hadn't hurried while he'd been cleaning himself, despite his early concern that his brother just might not be able to control himself with him naked and vulnerable and so close. Some part of him felt safe around Dean. He had no idea what was going on with him, and he wasn't entirely sure that he didn't like it. That scared him more than any monster or demon ever could.

"Uh...yeah..." He rubbed his eyes. "I love you."

"Love you, too, Sam. Talk to you tomorrow...bye."

She hung up, and he did the same. He watched the bathroom door, and waited for Dean to come out.


	10. Chapter Ten

"So...what's our next case?" Sam asked, dropping into the passenger seat of the Impala after carefully settling his backpack into the back seat, mindful of his laptop. "Where are we going? Because I was on a couple of news sites this morning, and I found something in North Carolina that looks a lot like a - "

"Sure you don't want me to take you back to Stanford?" Dean interrupted, looking over at him. Sam blinked.

"I...yes. We had this conversation last night, didn't we?"

"Just checking," he said with a shrug. "In case you changed your mind or something. Anyway...we're going here." He reached into the back seat and snagged their dad's battered, scarred, leather-bound journal. The one that Colonel Moon had given to them yesterday, after they exorcised the demon from his son.

Privately, Sam didn't think that was a good sign. Even after filling it up completely except for a couple pages in the very back, their father had refused to go anywhere without that journal. It held every single thing he knew about hunting, and the only object he kept closer to himself was his handgun. It was doubtful that he would've willingly left it with a ghost in an abandoned Army base.

And, if Sam was being completely honest with himself, there was another reason the journal made him uncomfortable. Having what was basically a piece of his father so near was a constant, guilt-triggering reminder of why he couldn't let his guard down around Dean. Or get close to him. Or touch him. And it was also a reminder of what their dad's reaction would be if they found him and he saw them together.

Dean dropped the journal on the center console and flipped it open, tapping a blue sticky note on the first page. Sam leaned over to see two numbers, in his dad's rounded scrawl, on the paper. He was very aware of how close his face was to Dean's.

"Are those - " he started, not looking at his brother in an effort to control himself, but Dean cut him off.

"Coordinates? Yep." He nodded. "I looked 'em up - "

"With what?" Sam demanded, leaning back into his original position and glaring at him. He was pretty sure he already knew the answer.

"Your laptop." Seeing his expression, Dean rolled his eyes. But Sam saw sudden fear in the movement, terror that he might have crossed a line and driven him away again. "You were asleep, and I didn't wanna go to the library."

"There was a password - "

"Yeah, you should've made it something other than your favorite character from _Lord of the Rings_ ," Dean replied. Sam blinked, shocked.

"You...knew which one it was?" he asked, his voice quiet.

"Of course I did. You read those books when you were ten, and you barely shut up about 'em," Dean said, shrugging. The fear was gone now; he must be satisfied that he hadn't pissed Sam off. "I remember how much you liked...whatever his name was...it was something weird, it's on the tip of my tongue. I remembered it this morning...anyway. Fifth thing I tried." He coughed, looking suddenly uncomfortable. "Uh...yeah." Starting the engine, he gave Sam a quick glance before facing forward again. "It's Snyder, Texas. Did some research on the place, and I think I know why Dad wants us to go there."

"Great. He's not even here, and he's still bossing us around," Sam muttered, resting his chin in his hand and looking out the window on his side as Dean pulled out. He felt his eyes on him, but he couldn't tell what he was thinking without looking at him, and he didn't say anything. At least, not about that.

"People have been turning up mutilated," he went on, like Sam hadn't said a thing. "Like, _really_ mutilated. Guts eaten out, lips ripped off. And they're all in public places. Schools, parks, stores, stuff like that. The police reports don't mention anything weirder than that, but there might be something they're keeping quiet so the civvies don't freak out. We're gonna have to pull out some FBI badges and ask around, 'cause I didn't want to wake you up to hack into their database."

"You should've," Sam said with a shrug that was little more than a twitch of one shoulder. "I mean, it's a job, and Dad's sending us on it, so it's a little more important than letting me sleep in."

"Aw, but you looked so peaceful!" Dean exclaimed. Somewhere, in the back of his mind, Sam noticed that he didn't say "cute" or "sweet," and a strangely-mixed wave of gratitude and disappointment rolled through him. "Besides. That demon really tossed you around yesterday, and I figured you needed the rest." He tapped his fingers on the steering wheel, focused on the road. "Which reminds me. How's your head?"

Sam's free hand automatically went to the gauze pad taped over the wound under his hair. He'd cleaned and dressed it by himself, both last night and earlier that morning, because he was wary of letting Dean's hands anywhere near his head again. He remembered being touched by him yesterday, as he checked to see if the gash he'd gotten while fighting the demon they had been after was still bleeding, as clearly as if it'd been seared onto the lobes of his brain with a branding iron. He remembered what he'd felt and what he'd wanted - all of it just about as taboo as it could get.

He probably shouldn't've slept in the same room as Dean, after that. It was wrong and dangerous to be so close and vulnerable while his emotions were messed up like this, and he knew that. But, after spending a couple hours stumbling over piles of dismembered bodies and being tossed around by a malicious demon, it was comforting to have his big brother so close. It was irritating to Sam, that he was weak enough to feel that way (especially about Dean), and he'd never admit it. But he hadn't exactly made any progress on controlling that.

"Well, obviously, it still hurts, but it's not distracting or anything," he answered with another twitchy shrug. "No nausea, no blurred vision, no balance problems...so it's not a concussion. I'm fine."

"Good. Glad to hear that." Dean didn't look at him as he added, "Try and keep it from getting infected. And tell me if you need my help with it. Or anything."

Sam swallowed, picking up on something that may or may not have actually been implied there. He was dismayed by the warm little thrill of excitement in his stomach as he said, "Okay." He'd been unconsciously watching Dean out of the corner of one eye, but now he forced himself to look only at the dry Nevada landscape as it swept past. If he was gonna do this - stay with Dean until they found their dad - he really needed to get a handle on himself.

He tried to think about Jess, or his other friends back in California, but his mind kept going back to when he was in fifth grade and completely obsessed with anything and everything Tolkien. He remembered being snuggled against Dean's chest, his brother, at fourteen, nearly twice his size. That was how they spent their afternoons when they came home from school, for most of that semester, which was how long they stayed at that K-12 school in Minnesota. Dean sprawled back against a pile of pillows, watching TV with the volume turned down low so as not to bother Sam, him nestled as close to him as he could get with his freckly, leanly-muscled arms loose around him, reading. Every once in awhile, Dean would nuzzle affectionately into his hair. His lips and breath were warm against his scalp as he murmured, _Good book?_

Sam, deep in _The Fellowship of the Ring_ , could only nod.

Back in the present, Sam closed his eyes so tightly that the muscles of his forehead actually started to ache. He breathed out a silent curse, pissed at himself. Not for remembering - though, admittedly, that wasn't something he could allow himself to do. But for missing what he remembered. He wanted Dean to hold him again, because the only place he'd ever felt safe was in his arms. He wanted that casual, all-encompassing devotion back. He wanted to be able to spend hours pressed back-to-chest with his brother without feeling guilty or disgusted.

He missed what their relationship used to be, before their dad had seen them together. Not the incestuous sex - that, at least, still made his skin crawl with the pure wrongness of it - but the comfort. The affection, and the love. He missed it so much it hurt.

 _I don't give a damn how you feel about him, Sam._ His father's voice broke into his head suddenly, trembling with anger and barbed with pure revulsion, and he winced. It must've been slight, because Dean didn't move or make a sound. _Shut up, and listen to me. No, Sammy,_ listen to me. _He is your_ brother. _You've been sleeping with your brother. Your_ feelings _don't matter - it's sick, it's wrong, it goes against nature, and you're gonna stop it right this second. Understand?_

Sam exhaled forcefully as the voice faded, massing his forehead. A headache was starting to take root there.

_Okay. Okay..._

With a swipe of his mental hand, he cleared the missing out of his mind and his heart, locking it up with the rest of the feelings he'd abandoned at nineteen. Anything that was left got converted into longing for Jess, their apartment, the Stanford campus. Everything normal and not Dean.

But when Dean took one hand off the wheel and rested his arm on the center console, so it just barely, accidentally, brushed against Sam's, he didn't yell at him for it. Or resent the warmth that would pulse up from that tiny point of contact for hours to come until Dean moved again.

**Three Days Later - Late September, 2005**

"Rise and shine, Sammy - uh, Sam, sorry 'bout that - I have breakfast."

The sound of a box - probably full of doughnuts - and then a carton - probably holding two disposable cups of coffee - hitting the minuscule table in their motel room made Sam blearily open his eyes. He was on his stomach, the thin covers rumpled around him, his legs spread and the lower half of his face buried in a pillow on top of his folded arms. The position sent a pang of anxiety through him, because he was in such a suggestive pose and it made him so vulnerable, but it was gone just as quickly as it'd come. He pushed himself up with a groan, raising one hand to swipe at the crud in the corners of his eyes.

"I'm starting to get really sick of gas station food," he muttered, settling himself down on the edge of the bed and casting a sleepy glare at the table.

"Well, if you think of something cheaper, tell me, and we can switch to that." Dean shrugged and flipped open the box, pulling a glazed doughnut out. So. He'd been right. "But until then - " He took a huge bite, managing to cram almost all of the doughnut into his mouth on his first try, then looked over at Sm and continued with a full mouth. "This is the stuff you were raised on, and you were just fine with it for twenty years."

Sam gave him an unimpressed look, running a hand through his sleep-mussed hair. "I think I"m getting even sicker of your manners."

Dean grinned at him, making sure as much half-chewed doughnut as possible was visible.

"You're disgusting," Sam said, rolling his eyes as he hauled himself to his feet. He reached for the pair of jeans he'd left on the floor next to his bed last night, figuring that, since he'd only worn them for a couple days in a row so far, they were still okay. Amazing how fast he got back into the rhythm of living out of a car.

"Well, excuse me, Miss Samantha."

"I don't suppose you stumbled upon any breakthroughs while you were out?" he asked, changing the subject as he fished a clean pair of boxers and his last fresh T-shirt out of his backpack. He looked up just in time to see Dean scowl and reach for one of the insulated coffee cups.

"Well, that would've been helpful, but no," he growled, sipping at it with a grimace. It must be even worse that usual. "How 'bout that girl you met at the supermarket? The one whose little sister got chewed up by whatever it is we're hunting here. She call you while you were still in dreamland?"

Sam leaned over to scoop his phone off the flimsy table between his and Dean's beds and pressed a button to wake it up, then sighed when the default display came up. No missed calls, no messages. "No. She must not've remembered anything besides what she already told me."

"Awesome." Dean dropped into one of the folding chairs that their motel - which called itself the Maverick Inn - had set out around the table. In what Sam had sarcastically termed one of the classiest displays he'd ever seen. Taking another swig of his coffee, Dean raised an eyebrow as Sam draped today's clothes over his arm and headed for the bathroom. "Don't you wanna eat before you shower?" He tapped the lid of the remaining cup. "Your coffee'll get cold."

"I can still drink it like that," Sam said with a shrug, stepping onto the cheap yellow linoleum with his bare feet. As he closed and locked the door, he heard Dean mutter "Weird," and couldn't hold back an easy smile.

Stripping off the T-shirt he'd spent the night in, he barely spared a glance for his lanky, narrowly-muscled frame in the mirror as he walked over to the small shower stall. Twisting the red and blue knobs with one hand, he wriggled out of his sweatpants and boxers with the help of the other. It was too hot to sleep in sweats, but he couldn't bring himself to comfortably wear just a pair of boxers. Or even boxers and a T-shirt. He needed his legs covered, which Dean had somehow failed to tease him about, even though he knew he'd noticed. Maybe he knew that part of him, still, would only be completely at ease if he were sleeping in his own room.

This new hunt of theirs, only their second as partners, weren't going as well as they'd hoped. Dean, especially, had been pretty optimistic when they rolled into Snyder about two days ago, because it had been their dad who sent them here. They weren't following a hunch or a rumor they'd found themselves, praying for the best as they tried to figure out just what it was they were supposed to do. Their father had been here, and decided that they needed to come. So it should've been easy.

But, so far, they were pretty much exactly where they'd been two days ago. Sam stepped under the spray from the shower head, wincing and gritting his teeth when he realized that it was just a little too cold - and he'd already turned the hot water on as far as it would go. Great. He shivered a little, tipping his head back and closing his eyes, but he was still focused on the hunt. They'd impersonated FBI agents (his fake badge had the same dorky picture, from when he was nineteen, as the federal marshal badge) and bluffed their way into the morgue and the crime scenes, but they hadn't found anything new. They'd talked to the cops and the civilians who'd found and processed the bodies, but, other than being obviously traumatized, there hadn't been anything interesting about them.

They had no idea what it was, much to Dean's frustration and Sam's confusion. It wasn't a werewolf - the lunar cycle was off, and most of the corpses still had their hearts. Just not their intestines. It wasn't a ghost - a massively-powerful poltergeist might be able to muster the strength to do something like this once, in its place of haunting, but not as often or as widely spread as this had been. It wasn't a witch - magical rituals tended to be nasty, yeah, but not quite as public as this thing was.

"Maybe it's just a normal, human serial killer," Sam had suggested yesterday. "Y'know, it doesn't always have to be a monster."

"Too many things that don't match up," Dean muttered, taking a swig from the flask he'd stuffed into the inside pocket of his rented "FBI" suit jacket. "Whatever tore these people up was stronger than any normal vanilla human being, and, if it _was_ a serial killer, the security cameras would've caught something. But they didn't." He looked over at Sam. "Plus. Dad sent us here. Don't you think he would've been able to tell if it wasn't our kinda thing?"

Things had seemed a little more promising late yesterday afternoon, when Sam, at the local, family-owned supermarket to grab a couple boxes of gauze pads (his head wound, though finally closing, had taken up a lock) and restock the makeshift first-aid kit, had run into Robbi Jones. She was a tiny, nervous woman in her early twenties, and her younger sister Rachel had been one of the latest victims. She'd mentioned hearing odd noises around the house they'd shared several days before her sister disappeared and then showed back up in pieces, which had initially piqued Sam's interest...but it hadn't panned out.

So he was washing his hair now, getting ready for another day of wandering aimlessly around town before calling Jess in the evening, because he was keeping his promise to her. And the door was locked out of force of habit, but he wasn't uncomfortable in the slightest with Dean in the next room.

That was why, even though they were basically beating their heads against a brick wall with this case, Sam was still optimistic. Because things were going so well with Dean. There was no touching that wasn't purely accidental, and even that was over fast with no reaction from either of them. There were no innuendos. When his childhood nickname popped up, his brother glossed over it effortlessly. Sam hadn't pissed him off since shoving him in Lake City,and Dean hadn't done anything at all to make him angry. They had fallen into a rhythm of working and living together that was smoother than anything Sam could've hoped for. Dean completely accepted the hands-off, blatantly non-sexual business relationship he wanted. They were partners and nothing more. Not even brothers, really.

Sam couldn't help but be happy. And maybe waves of crippling sadness hit him right when he was falling asleep, and pangs of longing and regret kept sounding in his heart all day as he worked beside Dean, but he knew how to get rid of those. For awhile.

Clean, he turned off the not-quite-hot-enough water and stepped out, blinking droplets of water out of his eyes as he reached for one of the worn-out brown towels on the rack. Once his skin was dry and his hair was little more than damp - the shaggy stuff on his hair drying into unruly waves, the wispy patch on his pectorals settling into its natural pattern, the neat mat of pubic hair above his cock returning to its usual fluffy curls - he dressed himself and walked barefoot out of the bathroom. Two doughnuts on a rough brown-paper napkin and the second cup of coffee were waiting for him, as well as Dean, holding the cell phone he used to stay in contact with the local law enforcement they ran into in the course of working. He waggled it when Sam looked at him, and raised both eyebrows.

"The police chief just called me," he said. "Or I guess he called Agent Waters, but whatever. Apparently, we got another vic."

Sam sighed. "Great."

"Get your suit on," Dean told him, nodding to the larger of the two rented business suits thrown over the backs of the other folding chairs. "I'll be waiting for you. You can eat in the car."

Coming out of the room several minutes later, with the coffee in his hand and one of the doughnuts held in his teeth, Sam maneuvered himself into the passenger seat of the Impala. He briefed Dean on what, exactly the police chief had said about this newest corpse on the way to the crime scene, which was in a playground on the other side of town. According to Dean, he hadn't said much beyond that it was pretty much exactly the same as all the others. A young woman, identified as a local named Nora Steele, with one arm and both legs found several yards away from the rest of her and her abdominal organs eaten by what looked like a rabid animal. She had no connection to the other victims, and, as Sam would later find out, absolutely nothing weird or criminal about her at all.

Just as the chief had said, there was nothing new, but they spent pretty much the entire day at the scene anyway. Just in case. They talked to everyone they saw, examined the body, and searched the area multiple times, hoping to find something that they hadn't seen before. Which didn't happen, but, as frustrating as that was, doing something still felt better than just sitting on their asses back at the motel room.

While examining a loop of chewed-on intestine, Dean stood, leaving Sam crouching. His knuckles barely brushed against his freshly-shaved cheek as he turned away to go look at something else. Sam swallowed, forcibly crushing a sudden urge to grab that hand and press it against his face, so he could revel in the warmth and the contact. He stared, hard, at the guts in front of him, to try and get rid of the flutter of arousal that Dean's brief touch had planted in his crotch.

Some days, he thought these things were getting worse. Maybe it came from being in such close proximity to him for so long.

"Dinner." Dean unceremoniously shoved a burger at him around eight p.m., after walking across the street to a small restaurant that was little more than a stand. The body was gone, the area was cleaned up, but a few cops who apparently had nothing better to do were still hanging around the cordoned-off crime scene. Sam had been quietly talking to one of them about what he thought of the whole situation.

"Thanks." He unwrapped the parchment paper around the warm burger, and examined it in the dim light. "Veggie?"

"Well, you bitched at me on Tuesday, when I gave you a normal one," Dean shrugged, leaning against the nearby Impala and unwrapping his own dinner. From the scent, it was a bacon cheeseburger. "Even though you used to like those."

"I _like_ the idea of not having a heart attack before I'm thirty," Sam replied. Dean smirked at him, but it was tired, and he didn't answer. The dead ends they kept hitting must be even harder on him than Sam had thought, if he didn't even have the heart for banter right now.

He thought he knew why. This was a hunt that their father had given to them, and Dean wanted to get it over with fast and neat, even though it wasn't uncommon for a hunt to drag on for weeks. He wanted to impress him with his skill. The man was his idol, after all. Which Sam thought was pathetic and more than a little sad, seeing as their dad pretty much despised Dean but he had no clue.

He was about to give him a sympathetic look and tell him that they would, without a doubt, find something, when his phone rang.

Sam set his untouched veggie burger down on the roof of the Impala (Dean eyed him disapprovingly, probably wary about him getting grease on the paint) and dug his phone out of the pocket of his slacks. "Hello?"

"Agent Mason?" Robbi Jones's voice was barely even a whisper in his ear.

"Robbi." His voice came out professional and concerned without him even thinking about it. He felt a thrill of...not exactly excitement, that she'd called him, because hunting wasn't really an undying passion of his. But it was close. "How are you doing? Did you...remember something new?"

"No...no." He could barely make out what she was saying. She'd been quiet when he talked to her before, but not like this. "It's just...the noises I heard before I lost Rachel..." She paused, and he heard a sniffle. His first instinct was to say something that would comfort her, but he needed to hear what she had to tell him first. "I'm hearing them again. Right outside the house."

Sam automatically straightened, feeling his face settle into a determined mask. "Okay, Robbi. I'm gonna need you to lock your doors and windows, and stay inside no matter what you hear. Understand? My partner and I'll be there as soon as possible. Don't worry."

Robbi whispered out an affirmation and something about how grateful she was, but Sam wasn't listening. As soon as she was quiet again, he snapped his phone shut and turned to face Dean, who was watching him with his arms folded and his burger, forgotten, sitting on top of the Impala next to Sam's.

"That was Robbi - " he started.

"Who?"

"The girl I met at the supermarket." He shook his head impatiently. "She told me that she'd heard stuff a couple nights before whatever this thing is went after her younger sister - "

"Right," Dean said, nodding. "Scratching and hisses. Pretty vague."

"Yeah, but probably dangerous," Sam responded. "And she's hearing them again."

"All right, let's go." Dean cleared their basically-untouched dinner off the car, giving his burger one last longing glance before tossing it into a nearby trash can. "You know where she lives?"

"Yeah. She gave me her phone number and her address." Sam pulled open the door on the passenger side. "She sounded really scared. We should hurry."

"Damn straight," Dean agreed with a grin. "This hunt is finally picking up."

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------

After assuring Robbi (through the door - she'd taken Sam's instructions as literally as possible) that they had arrived and were going to find and dispose of whatever was making the noises she'd been hearing, Sam let Dean lead the way off her tiny porch and around the property. The house itself was pretty small, which was probably to be expected from two women both living on college budgets, but the yard was massive. And it was a jungle.

A grief-stricken Robbi had blurted out, during their first meeting, that Rachel had had a bit of a green thumb. Seeing what had to be her handiwork spread out in front of him, Sam couldn't help but think that that was sorta like saying Hannibal Lecter was a little disturbed. The yard was a maze of shrubs and exotic trees and artfully-shaped flowerbeds, all in full bloom even though it was technically fall. They'd probably once been impeccable, but Rachel Jones had been dead for a little over a week and a half, and things were starting to overgrow and wilt. A cloying floral scent completely filled the air. They wouldn't be able to smell ozone or sulfur or rotting flesh or anything else that might give them a clue.

"Awesome," Dean said grimly, his hand brushing unconsciously over several of the many knives he'd strapped to his belt. "I've always wanted to hunt monsters in Oz...while wearing a suit. Great."

"What's that?" Sam asked, ignoring him. It was starting to get pretty dark, so he'd grabbed a flashlight out of the arsenal in the trunk in addition to all his other weaponry (a shotgun full of salt, steel knives, a handgun with regular rounds, a flask of holy water, purifying charms from a dozen different pagan religions...he'd tried to cover all the bases). Now, he flicked it on and walked into the garden, looking at something glistening and red on the ground. "Oh...ew."

"Piece of intestine," Dean noted, coming up behind him to stand - very carefully, he noticed - just fa enough away to keep him comfortable. "Think it's from the latest corpse? That Nora girl?"

"Either her, or another victim we don't know about yet," Sam said. "It looks pretty fresh. And..." He moved his flashlight a little, picking out a slick, patchy trail of blood on the thick grass. Some part of his mind wondered just how much water it took to keep plants this healthy during the Texas summers. "There's your yellow-brick road."

"I don't think we're in Kansas anymore, Toto," was Dean's reply. "Let's go." He brushed past him, taking care not to actually touch him, and started following the blood trail.

For a second, Sam bristled, wondering just what Dean had meant by calling him "Toto," then realized he probably hadn't meant a damn thing and followed him. For awhile, there was only his flashlight beam picking out the blood trail as it led them through the overgrown garden. Until it mysteriously disappeared.

"Shit..." Sam looked around, suddenly becoming aware of a faint scratching sound now that his attention was no longer entirely taken up with the blood. "Hey. D'you hear that?"

"Yep." Dean pulled his handgun out of the waistband of his slacks, where he'd been keeping it, and cocked it. He turned to face Sam, who was doing the same with his own gun. "See anything?"

He swept his flashlight in a cursory circle before shaking his head. "No." A branch creaked above him in the tree he was standing under, and a few pale, sweet-smelling flowers drifted down onto his head. Dean's gaze drifted upwards as he brushed them off.

"Sam - " he said suddenly, his voice tight and warning, and Sam looked up just in time to see huge eyes and claws and fangs drop towards him.

He couldn't help but scream when talons raked down his back and across his shoulders, splitting his flesh even through the suit. Fangs like daggers sank into the meat of his chest as whatever it was bit him - viciously. He dropped to his knees, originally planning on rolling and trying to crush it until it let go of him, but the white-hot agony of deep wounds clouded his thoughts. He screamed again as the claws twisted against the muscle of his lower back, but, this time, it was a name.

_"Dean!"_

_Help me help me help me big brother please help me oh God it hurts so bad help me I need you -_

A gunshot that was practically right next to his ear all but deafened him, and he grunted in shock, but then claws and teeth wrenched out of him and something howled in agony. The weight of the thing that'd attacked him was suddenly gone, and he swayed on his knees, dizzy from pain and shock and loss of blood. His hears were ringing, but he could still make out his brother exclaiming, "What the hell was _that_?!"

"Dean," Sam murmured, trying to get to his feet, but he failed and almost fell over. He felt strong hands on him, steadying him and being extremely careful of his wounds as Dean dropped into a crouch.

"Sorry, sorry, I know I'm touching you, but I gotta," he muttered under his breath. Sam groaned in agony, squeezing his eyes shut and unintentionally blocking out Dean's intense, concerned face. His green eyes were brilliant. "No, shh, Sammy, it's gonna be okay, I gotcha...oh, shit, looks like that thing bit you. Okay. C'mon."

Sam felt himself pulled up and supported with immense gentleness, hands pressed hard to the worst-bleeding of his wounds. And, constantly, Dean was right next to him, murmuring, "I got you, Sammy. I'm gonna fix you..."

\--------------------------------------------------------

Sam remembered being hauled past a terrified Robbi, who'd come rushing out when she heard a gunshot - so maybe she hadn't followed his instructions quite as well as he'd thought. Dean waved off her fluttering attempts to help and deflected her questions ("Pretty sure it was some sort of animal. Maybe a raccoon - Jesus, _move it_ , can't you see he's bleeding out here?!"). On the rapid, extremely-illegal drive back to the motel, during which Dean broke pretty much every traffic law the U.S. had, he sat stiffly in the passenger seat and panted shallowly, each of his hands holding a rag from the trunk to the deepest gashes on his chest and shoulder. Dean, driving with one hand, was using the other to keep a rag pressed to a third wound. What Sam could see of his facial expression frightened him a little.

"The hospital," he managed to gasp out.

"Not going to the Goddamn hospital," Dean muttered, icy glare fixed out the windshield. Sam groaned, and not entirely out of pain. Some of those claws had sliced pretty deep into him, and he wouldn't be surprised to find out he had ruptured organs. You couldn't treat those with a fifth of whiskey and dental floss.

"Dean - "

"No, Sam, I'm not taking you to the hospital!" He shot him a glance, his expression terrified and tense. "We don't have insurance, we don't have any real IDs, and something _bit_ you and we don't even know what it was!" Breathing hard and working his lower lip between his teeth, he focused on the road again and continued in a quieter voice. "'Sides. I don't...I'm not gonna trust you to someone else. Not unless I absolutely have to."

Seeing the look that Sam was giving him, he sighed deeply, and took his hand off the wheel for just a second in order to rub it over his face.

"I'm sorry. Shouldn't've said that," he said quietly. Sam wanted to tell him he didn't need to apologize, he'd misinterpreted his expression, but he couldn't quiet bring himself to speak.

After parking the car and dragging him into the motel room, Dean had him swallow about five fairly-powerful painkillers with a glass of metallic-tasting tap water. Then, just to be on the safe side, he gave him a shot of whiskey. Sam wasn't actually sure you were supposed to mix those two things, but he embraced anything that would help the unbearable agony he was feeling right now. God, he'd forgotten how much it hurt to be clawed up.

Dean washed his wounds as gently as he could, dabbing away the welling blood to make sure there was no damage he couldn't fix. Sam sat on the edge of one of the folding chairs, shirtless ("Guess we're gonna lost the deposit on this, huh?" Dean joked as he pulled off his jacket, shirt, and tie, all bloody and torn) and groggy. So he could have access to both the front and back of him. Normally, Dean's hands on his bare skin would have been occasion for screaming and an exchange of blows, and he was still uncomfortable, but he let him sew him up. He had no other choice. And it was almost...comforting, being taken care of like this by someone he'd literally known his entire life. Sam blinked, sleepily, and found himself disappointed when Dean, done patching up his back and shoulders, moved on to his chest - and didn't touch anything at all besides the skin directly around the holes left by the monster's fangs. Not his nipples, not his lower ribs, not the thin trail of dark pubic hair that ran down from his belly button, on his flat stomach.

He was being careful. He was respecting him, honoring his wishes. Sam was hurt, heavily drugged, and, probably, drunk, and Dean was going out of his way not to take advantage of him.

He whimpered a little bit.

"I'm sorry," Dean soothed, misunderstanding. "Doing my best not to hurt you any more than you are already here, but you're pretty torn up."

"No...no. Dean..." Sam looked up at him, blinking back tears of regret and self-loathing, all his inhibitions completely stripped away by the stuff coursing through his veins. He didn't want sex - his need was too childish for that, and some basic part of him understood that his body was too damaged right now. Even if he couldn't feel the pain. He wanted love. He wanted comfort. He wanted to make Dean understand. So he reached to cup his face with one hand, but Dean moved back from him, expression weary.

"I've just gotta put bandages on you, and then I'll stop touching you, okay?" he said, raising his hands. "Don't flip out on me yet. I know how you hate me - " Sam winced at that. He didn't hate him. He'd never hated him. How could he think that? " - so, if you want me to, I can sleep out in the Impala tonight. If this whole thing has made you too uncomfortable."

"No," Sam murmured, as Dean gently rubbed antiseptic ointment over his stitches, then wrapped his torso in gauze.

"C'mon, let's get you into bed," Dean said softly, helping him to his feet. "I'm not gonna try anything, I promise. I'd let you do it yourself if I thought you could walk without falling over...maybe the whiskey was a bad idea, huh?."

"Dean," Sam tried again, as Dean settled him on his bed and crouched to get his shoes off. He glanced up at him, expressionless.

"I told you, I'll be gone in a minute," he said flatly.

"No..." Sam noticed that his tongue wasn't working too well. Maybe the whiskey really had been a bad idea.

"That big vocabulary kinda deserts you when you're drugged, huh?" He straightened up. "Okay, I'm...gonna..."

He trailed off, because Sam had leaned forward and wrapped his arms tightly around his waist, even though it pulled on his stitches hard enough to make a little bit of pain flicker through the fog of drugs and alcohol. His head rested against Dean's solar plexus, and he closed his eyes. Even though he was still wearing his shirt and slacks (both bloodstained), he could feel his warmth. And make out his scent. No leather, because he hadn't worn his jacket in days, but the solid, masculine smell of seat that came from actual work was still there, and so was that inexplicable trace of almost-vanilla.

"Sam," Dean said quietly, voice just a little husky. "What're you doing?"

"Stay," he whispered into the firm muscles of his brother's stomach. "Please."

There was a very, very long pause. Then, "You told me you didn't want this."

Sam looked up at him, and made a monumental effort to focus, before slowly enunciating, "I need you to stay with me."

"Okay, you're obviously not thinking straight right now - "

"Dean." Sam closed his eyes again and put his head back against Dean's stomach. He hadn't moved an inch. Terrified that he might break the contact, he let out a ragged sob of an exhale. _"Please."_

They stayed in that position for a long, long time, neither saying or doing anything, until, finally, Dean pushed Sam's arms off of him. He did it with incredible tenderness, but Sam's heart sank anyway. Until he sat down next to him, being careful not to touch him, and softly asked, "So. What do you want me to do?"

In answer, Sam leaned against him, tucking his head onto his shoulder and curling up against his broad chest. He was more comfortable than even he and Jess's bed, which they'd payed way too much for. He slowly pulled his legs up, like he was moving through water, as Dean let out a barely-audible, "Oh."

He turned, to put them into a more comfortable position, then swung his own legs up and lay back against the pillows. As Sam rested against him, legs curled up next to his and torso positioned completely on his chest, he put his arms around him. Awkwardly, at first. Like he didn't quiet remember what he was doing. But it got better, until he was holding him in a warm embrace that had the promise of steely strength behind it. The message was clear and automatically comforting. He was being gentle with him, because he was hurt and he loved him, but he was more than capable of protecting him if he needed to.

Sam gripped Dean's shoulder and pulled himself closer. He'd been hurt - really, _really_ hurt - and rendered helpless for the first time in years, and that'd shaken him. The booze and pills hadn't done anything to help him hide his vulnerability. But, right now, he was glad.

"You just wanted to feel safe, huh?" Dean whispered to him. "Sammy...I'm so sorry you got hurt, I should've - "

"'M fine now," Sam murmured into his chest. He squeezed his shoulder reassuringly. Or, at least, he thought he did. He was pretty close to passing out. "Feel safe."

"Yeah, I can keep you safe now, don't worry." Dean wasn't doing anything but holding him. He wished he'd rub his back or stroke his hair, or kiss him, but he tried to be happy with this. "You'll be safe tonight. I promise you, Sam, you're safe. I'm here."


	11. Chapter Eleven

For as long as Dean could remember, he'd woken up before Sam. It was a habit that had been ingrained in him almost twenty-two years ago, when Sam was six months old and needed to be fed, changed, and comforted every few hours - and Dad was usually passed out drunk, self-medicating for the loss of his wife. As they got older, it'd been useful because he could have breakfast ready for his little brother when he woke up, so mornings in a cheap motel room out in God's Nowhere Land were just a little better. Or he could pull him out of whatever obscure corner of the bed he'd wriggled into during the night and cover him with kisses and warm touches, if it wasn't a school day. It was fun to hear his little growls of protest because he wanted to keep sleeping.

But, if he stayed in his arms all night, snuggled against his chest like it was his favorite place in the world...then waking up before Sam was a real treat. Dean hadn't expected that to ever happen again, after the way Sam had treated him when he showed up in his apartment. And the distance he'd forced between them as they worked to find Dad, even though they were at least treating each other civilly now instead of snapping and shoving. So, when he woke up holding someone warm and solid, his sleep-fuzzed brain didn't immediately remember - or believe - that it was Sam.

 _Oh, shit, I must've fallen asleep,_ he thought, heart sinking. He assumed he'd gone home with someone he met at a bar. He didn't actually remember going to a bar last night, but that didn't mean much. What mattered was that he'd bedded this person and then stayed the night, which he never allowed himself to do. It conveyed the wrong message. _She must think_ \- No, not a woman, the chest pressed to his was flat and angular. - he _must think I like him. Damn it, this is gonna be awkward...gonna have to explain I've got somebody else I'm just waiting for...God, I hate talking to one-night stands about Sammy..._

The guy in his arms shifted a little, and suddenly whimpered in pain. Dean's breath caught in his throat as the voice registered.

_I...no. Gotta be dreaming. Right?_

But last night was coming back to him through a haze of exhaustion, stress, denial, and excitement. He held back those memories, making sure. He smelled blood, hydrogen peroxide, antiseptic ointment...and Sam, such a warm, clean, wholly familiar scent. The shape was right, his torso bare and ridged with lean muscle, and Dean felt bandages and hot, smooth skin when he moved his fingers a little. There was a nest of soft hair resting against his shoulder and tickling his neck.

He remembered the absolute terror of cleaning and closing up Sam's wounds last night, pulling each one open to dab the blood and grit out and expecting a torn, pulsating organ to spurt gore at him in a death sentence for his younger brother. He remembered hating himself for touching Sam so intimately when he obviously didn't want it, and his lack of arousal even though Sam's bare skin was under his hands. He was just too scared to be horny, too concerned about his pain. And that bite. The bite was a problem.

And he remembered Sam hugging him. Begging him to stay. Immediately nestling into his chest and and his embrace, making tiny sounds of contentment and comfort. Oh, God, he'd loved him so much right then, with a painful intensity he hadn't felt for years, and he'd wanted to protect him from everything that might hurt him.

Yeah, Sam'd been out of it when he practically begged to be held. But that wasn't a big deal. No matter how hopped up on pain pills he'd been, he still loved Dean, and he still automatically turned to him when he was scared and hurting. Eyes still closed and head resting on a pillow, Dean couldn't keep a disbelieving, ecstatic smile from spreading across his face. Sam had let him sleep in the same bed with him, and he'd let him touch him - _asked_ him to touch him - and he'd spent the entire night safe in his arms without moving once. Every little gesture and vocal tic that he'd latched onto before meant nothing now, because this was indisputable proof that there was still so much between them worth salvaging.

Sam still loved him. He couldn't get over that.

With a long, happy sigh, Dean tipped his head back a little and pulled Sam just the tiniest bit closer to him, being incredibly careful of his stitches. The very last thing he wanted to do was hurt him. He could remember spending a million mornings like this, staying still and just enjoying every single sensation, so he didn't wake up Sam before he was ready. Even as Dean stopped growing and Sam matched, then surpassed him in size, they had slept in this position. It was familiar, it felt good...it was what they automatically fell into at the end of the day. Dean hadn't even realized how much he'd missed it until he felt Sam's weight pressed against him again, filling up a space he hadn't even known was so painfully empty. All the pain and abandonment and uncertainty of the last two years (and, especially, the last week) was totally worth what he was feeling right now.

His fingertips brushing against the bandages on Sam's back as he moved one of his hands in an unconscious, soothing motion, Dean wondered what this meant. Did he have him back now, completely, as a brother and a best friend and a lover? Or was this just the very beginning of what they needed to do to rebuild their relationship?

Either way, he was all for it. Just so long as he got to keep touching and holding.

Sam stirred, his movements stronger now, and groaned in pain. Realizing he was waking up, Dean opened his eyes and raised his head. A tangle of dark hair greeted him, and one bandaged shoulder (hunched inward, reminding him of a broken wing), and his own arms, holding this fragile bundle of tan skin and clever mind and aching stitches to his chest.

"Hey, c'mon, now, take it slow," he murmured to him. "It's gonna hurt like a son of a bitch today, and you gotta get used to it. Don't make it worse."

Sam's hand was on his shoulder, gripping him through the thin white button-down he hadn't had the time to take off last night. It moved slightly now, feeling. With one side of his face pressed to Dean's chest and other shoulder, he murmured out a question that might've been his name.

"Yeah...good morning," Dean said softly, patting the side of his ribcage. There wasn't anything there that would hurt. He thought about kissing the top of his head, but that might not be okay yet. "How'd you sleep?"

 _Because I slept great, with you right here, he thought,_ smiling down at him. _I wanna tell you that. I want you to know what you mean to me._

"Fine."

Dean paused, his smile fading. It'd only been one word, but it's been enough for him to tell that something was wrong. Sam's voice was so...expressionless, and it shouldn't be. Not after what'd happened, and not with what he obviously felt.

 _Oh, God,_ please, _not this again. I can't go back to this._

"You...hurting, or something?" he asked uncertainly, as his heart sank and his stomach twisted. He was praying that Sam's lack of emotion came from something other than the fact that they'd spent the night so close. Dammit, he'd wanted this, hadn't he? "Here. Just go real slow, take all the time you need, and we can get you breakfast and some pills. I'll help you if you need it."

Sam's chest slowly expanded and contracted as he breathed, a tiny wince occasionally shuddering through him as he stretched one of his wounds too far. He didn't say anything for a little bit, and Dean swallowed fear and anxiety. Slowly, the hand on his shoulder opened, and moved away. He closed his eyes as the cool air of the motel room hit him through his shirt.

_Don't do this, Sammy..._

"Dean." Again, his voice was totally blank, and quiet. "Let go of me. Please."

_Don't do this to me._

His first instinct was to just hold on, because he hadn't done anything wrong and he hadn't had Sam this close to him in years - he wanted to enjoy it for a little longer. But he couldn't do that, because he'd be forcing him into something he didn't want. The thought made him sick. So he opened his arms, and moved away from Sam as he twisted and turned and carefully maneuvered himself into a sitting position. Every tiny sound of pain he made was like a blow to Dean, and he wanted so badly to help, so he could make it easier. The morning after a beating was always hellish in a way few people could understand. But he kept his hands to himself, sitting up and resting his forearms on his bent knees as he watched Sam. He was sitting on the opposite edge of his bed, torso held stiffly, his hands bearing some of his weight.

_Please._

"You got bit," he spoke up, just wanting to fill the silence. What he actually wanted to do was ask him just what the hell was wrong with him, and what he'd done to deserve this. But that might push him further away. "D'you...feel any different this morning? Like you're turning into a monster?"

Sam shook his head, but didn't say anything. Then he shivered, just a little bit. Dean, still pretty much fully clothed, wasn't feeling the chill of the early morning, but Sam's torso was bare. He sighed, scooting over until he could hook his legs over the edge of the bed and sit beside him.

"You're cold," he murmured. "Sam..." He hesitated, then shook his head and decided to just go for it. He'd been dealing with Sam brushing him off and keeping them apart for almost a week now - over two years, actually, if you counted his time at Stanford - and he was sick of it. Especially now that they'd spent the night together, at Sam's urging. Things were different now, and he was damn well going to act according to that. "Whatever morning-after regrets you're having right now, get rid of 'em. It's not worth it, we can't afford it - and I don't even know why you'd _have_ morning-after regrets, seeing as we didn't do anything. We just slept." Dean studied Sam's face, which was impassive, hazel eyes aimed down at the floor. "So...let me warm you up, okay? We'll go real slow with this. I didn't do anything last night that I thought you might be uncomfortable with, and that's not gonna change." Taking a chance, he reached up and used the very tips of his fingers to stroke the ruffles of dark hair that fell onto Sam's neck. "You can trust me."

"Dean, I..." He hesitated, squeezing his eyes shut. His mouth worked as he chewed on the inside of his lip. "Okay. Don't...don't touch me." He reached up, grabbed his wrist, and guided his hand away, and Dean felt the muscles in his face twitch involuntarily. Even though the movement was so reluctant on Sam's part

"Sammy - "

"Don't call me that, either." He turned away, refusing to look at him even as he opened his eyes. "It's just 'Sam' - and last night didn't mean what you obviously think it meant."

"Excuse me?" Dean asked, feeling like he'd just been kicked in the stomach.

"Look. Obviously, I was pretty out of it, and I was hurt, and I was scared," Sam started. "You...comforted me, I guess, and...that was okay. You were...being a good brother." He rubbed a hand over his face. "But we're just partners."

"Sam - " Dean tried, disbelief evident in his voice.

"I told you that I didn't want anything else," Sam quietly interrupted him. "So...we can't ever do anything like this again if we're gonna keep working together. Last night never should've happened - and, yeah, I know it was my fault, but I wasn't thinking straight. You think this was the start of something, but...it wasn't. And I think we should just try and forget about it."

 _"'Forget about it'?"_ Dean asked incredulously. "How the hell can you expect me to - "

"We are brothers," Sam said forcefully. "We're related. We can't do this...and I - I don't want to."

Dean stayed silent for a little bit, his heart hammering in his chest and anger and pain twisting bitterly in his stomach. He didn't know how to fix this, or what to say - because, yeah, he'd thought this was the start of something. He'd made himself vulnerable, and now Sam was taking advantage of that, even if he didn't realize it.

_I wish I didn't love you like I do, so I could hurt you back._

But he could manage, "So. You're really gonna do this. You're gonna act like nothing happened."

"Don't get pissed at me," Sam said, and it sounded like he was begging. "Look. I'm not leaving, I'm not yelling...you fixed me up and then you didn't take advantage of me, and I understand that. I'm _grateful_ for that. But...no. I'm not gonna be your - " His upper lip twitched a little, like he was fighting with himself about what he was going to say. " - lover again. I have a girlfriend, Dean. I wouldn't want this even if we weren't related."

"Yeah, I know," Dean replied, staring fiercely down at his boots and digging his fingers into the mattress. This _hurt_. Even worse than when Sam had left for Stanford, and when he'd hit him. Last night, he'd gotten back the one thing he loved and cared about more than anything else, practically a missing piece of his heart...his Sammy. And now that sense of perfect wholeness was being taken away again, leaving him raw and empty. But he didn't know how to say that so Sam would understand.

"I'm gonna...ow...shower, and get dressed." Sam winced as he got to his feet, still not really looking at Dean. "You can get us breakfast, and then we can go back to Robbi's house. Look around."

"Sam..." Dean tried, not sure what he was gonna say but desperate to try. He needed to salvage something. But Sam ignored him, moving stiffly to the bathroom and closing the door behind him. The lock clicked mournfully.

Dean bowed his head with a deep, shuddering sigh. Part of him desperately wanted to yell at Sam, call him out for going back on the promises he'd made last night with his gestures and his body. To touch him no matter what he said, and plant kisses on his hair and the back of his neck from behind, and pull him into quick embraces whenever he thought he needed it. But he had to force those urges down, despite his resentment of his younger brother - and himself, for being so weak. Because, again, that would be forcing something he didn't want on him. Basically rape, which Sam had already all but accused him of right after they started working together...and he didn't want to validate that.

It might make him leave, too, and Dean couldn't stand that. Having him here, even acting like he was and refusing all contact unless he was drugged, was a million times better than being separated again. He couldn't touch, this way, but he could still get his fill of hazel eyes and shaggy brown hair and a deep, deliberate voice.

But that was a pretty small comfort as Dean stared at the closed door, furious and indignant but mostly just hurt.

 _I kept you safe last night,_ he thought, squeezing his eyes shut and massaging them so he wouldn't cry. Yeah, because that was exactly what he needed right now - to start bawling in a cheap motel room because his boyfriend didn't want to get back together with him. He didn't let himself think about the fact that there was so much more to it than that. _I protected you. I took care of you._

Water stuttered on in the bathroom, and Dean imagined Sam unwinding his bandages and awkwardly trying to shower without getting his stitches wet. He didn't think about his naked body, though that definitely would've been nice. He just thought about how difficult and painful his normal routine was going to be for him, on his own.

_That used to be enough._

He forced himself to his feet and wandered over to the table, where he'd left his car keys. He needed to get breakfast.

_I did what was best for you...didn't I?_

**Early October, 1990**

"Excited to go back to school?" Dean asked, crouched behind his brother to zip up his jacket. Sammy nodded emphatically, almost hitting him in the nose with his head.

"Uh-huh!" He was fidgeting, impatient, his small, soft body practically buzzing with energy under Dean's hands. "Can we go yet?"

"Hey, calm down. Jesus, you little bookworm..." Dean checked his jacket, his jeans, his boots, and his gloves, making sure he was properly buttoned up against the harsh Montana cold. "Okay, let's get your hat on. Your worksheet's in your backpack, right?"

"Yes!" Sammy bounced on his heels, incredibly excited by the prospect of turning in real homework for the first time. He hadn't been able to stop talking about it all weekend, and Dean had listened, knowing how grownup this made him feel. He'd never had any in kindergarten, and he'd always finished all his work in class as a first grader. He always watched, wide-eyed, as Dean made a half-assed pass at book reports and math assignments in their motel rooms, and begged to help. Most of the time, his "help" amounted to sitting in Dean's lap and listening to him swear at things he didn't understand, because they were four years apart. So the addition worksheet that his teacher had given him on a Friday was a big deal. "It's in my folder. I checked." He looked over his shoulder, as Dean stood up to reach for the woolly green hat on the nightstand between their bed and Dad's. His excitement seemed to fade, suddenly, and he just looked vulnerable. "Dean...can you check it again? On the way to school?"

"I've checked it three times. I think you're good," Dean replied, tugging the hat down over Sammy's ears and smashing the wavy curls of his hair flat in the process. "'Sides. It was right the first time. You're smart." He knelt, and brushed some hair out of Sammy's face, his own gloves making the movement clumsy. "I bet your teacher's gonna be real proud of you. When we get home, you can hop in bed, I'll make some of that instant cocoa Dad picked up the other day...and you can tell me all about it. Okay?"

"Okay." Sammy smiled at him, nervous but happy again. "You really think I did good?"

"I think you did great, Sammy. You definitely spent enough time on it. I feel like I barely saw you this weekend..." Dean automatically opened his arms when Sammy stepped forward and pressed himself against him with no warning, holding him tightly as he murmured an apology into the collar of his own, one-size-too-small jacket. "No, you don't gotta be sorry. We'll make up for it tonight." He let Sammy bury his face in the space between his neck and his shoulder, and dipped his head to breathe in the warm, comfortable little-kid scent of him. He planted a few soft kisses on the hair that curled out from underneath his hat, and the narrow strip of bare skin visible between that and his jacket, and Sammy grabbed onto him with a small sound of pleasure. "Warm enough?"

"Mm-hm." Dean leaned back against Dad's bed, pulling his little brother onto his lap and completely unable to hold back a soft chuckle as he burrowed into him again, reluctant to be separated.

"Few too many layers, though," he murmured, pushing him back a little and laying a hand against his chest. "I'm not looking forward to getting those all off, to see how beautiful you are under there."

Sammy smiled, the expression shy and full of love, and leaned back in to pepper Dean's throat with tiny kisses. He purred in approval, hugging him tightly. Almost two years since Dean's withdrawal (which he could tell Sammy still didn't understand) had reaffirmed their confidence in each other. Sammy barely left his side, but he was no longer afraid that he'd be abandoned at any moment. And Dean, able to see how happy what they did made him without hurting him at all, wasn't worried about it being wrong anymore. Obviously, he knew it wasn't right to kiss and hold and jerk off his baby brother, and that anyone who found out about it would probably freak out, but he didn't care. It worked for them.

Dean closed his eyes, comfortable and content, and let Sammy rest against him. But they flew open again in a second as he heard a car pull up and idle outside.

"Dad's here, we gotta go," he told Sammy, pushing him off his lap. "Get your backpack."

He could tell Sammy was disappointed, but they didn't really have a choice. They either hurried outside as soon as Dad showed up and he took them to school, or one of them didn't quite make it out the door in time and got left behind. No matter how big a fit the other pitched about it.

And they couldn't kiss and touch in front of Dad. Dean slung his ragged backpack onto his shoulder and hurried Sammy, with his small, battered red one, out the door of their motel room. He didn't allow it, and he was pretty sure his brother didn't understand anything about it except that Dean had told him not to, but that was good enough. Sammy didn't need to deal with the guilt or the fear that still hit him every once in awhile.

Dean pulled open the door of the Impala and scrambled in as soon as Sammy had, waving away his worksheet with a reassuring smile when he tried to get him to check it again, telling him he knew, for a fact, that it was perfect. That seemed to appease him. He really hoped that he wasn't this paranoid in the future, when he got more homework; as proud as Dean was of his little brother's academic drive, he didn't think he could take another weekend with him as nervous as he had been during this one. And he wasn't sure he could help him anymore, as he moved into higher and higher grades.

As Dad brought the car to a temporary stop right beside the entrance to their school, Dean grabbed his backpack and pushed the door open. His boots had barely hit the ground before Sammy was scrambling out right next to him. He hesitated before running off in the direction of his classroom, looking up at Dean uncertainly. Like he needed just the tiniest bit more reassurance to get him through the day. Dean felt a flood of sympathy and put a hand on his small shoulder, squeezing comfortingly; after shooting a quick glance at Dad, to make sure that he wasn't looking, he dropped to one knee and pressed a quick, tender kiss to Sammy's soft pink lips. That seemed to be enough. He let go of him, watching him run off to the grade school wing of the building, and turned towards his own classroom. In the back of his mind, he noted that his teacher - he hadn't bothered to learn her name - was standing in the doorway, eyes fixed on him and expression troubled. He didn't care.

At least, he wouldn't. Not for several hours.

**Late September, 2005**

Dean was numbly nursing a cup of coffee, hunched over the table, when Sam came out of the bathroom, fully dressed and with damp hair. He idly wondered how he'd gotten the clothes. Had he darted out and grabbed them while he was down at the gas station? Or did he stash an extra outfit under the sink, just in case?

"Got your bandages on okay?" he asked as Sam sat down across from him, hazel eyes skating across him like he wasn't even there. He kept his voice casual, slightly upbeat. Because he could totally pretend that it was a bright new day and nothing at all had happened last night.

"Um...yeah. Fine," Sam said quietly, staring at the cheap vinyl finish of the table as he reached for his own coffee. Just like always, Dean had dumped massive amounts of sugar and creamer and other stuff into it, to make it all sweet and frilly like he preferred. Coffee was important, and he wasn't going to screw with Sam's just because he'd figuratively ripped his heart out of his chest earlier.

"Y'know, down at the gas station this morning..." Dean began, taking another sip of coffee and carefully watching Sam. Maybe his stare was a little too intense to be considered perfectly friendly, but he didn't actually care. "I noticed the cashier was pretty cute." He shrugged. "Nice ass. So...you don't mind if I take off for a little bit tonight, do you?"

Sam stiffened. Not much, but enough that Dean caught it. He glanced up, then looked away again just as quickly, and Dean saw something flicker through his eyes before he did. Hurt. He'd hurt him.

It should've made him happy, but he just felt a little sick.

"You don't get to be all wounded when I talk about having sex with other people," he snapped before thinking, and the sick feeling got worse. "I don't owe you any loyalty."

"I'm not _wounded_ ," Sam snapped back, anger obviously flaring up in him for a second before it faded and he lowered his voice again. "Why would I be? There is _nothing_ going on between us, and it's better if we act like there never was...so of course you don't owe me anything."

"But we _did_ have something," Dean replied, fully aware that he was playing with fire as he took another drink. "We had a whole lot of something, and pretending it never happened isn't gonna get rid of what we both felt. What we're still feeling, if last night is any indication at all."

"Dean, stop it," Sam murmured, staring down at his insulated cup.

"You can't do this," Dean argued, swallowing apprehension and anxiety and a fear of pushing him away. "You can't just make everything go away. You grabbed onto me last night and begged me to hold you, to spend the night with you, and you can't make that go away."

"Stop it," Sam repeated, looking away.

"I..." Dean hesitated, before quietly saying, "No. I ain't gonna."

They sat in silence for several minutes, before Sam closed his eyes and began to speak in a soft, almost vulnerable voice.

"I don't wanna fight," he started. Dean waited, both hands wrapped around his cup. He was more than willing to hear him out. "I'm so sick of fighting with you. Things've been so much better between us than they were at first, these past couple of days, and I want to go back to that. I don't..." He hesitated. "I don't think I could handle you being angry with me again. Resenting me. And I don't want to be angry with you." He actually looked at him now, fixing him with a steady gaze. "Okay?"

"Okay," Dean agreed, because he didn't really know what else he could do. Immediately, he felt the distance between them again, and Sam broke eye contact, staying quiet until they were ready to leave.

It was something, at least. Things had changed. All he could do was hope that they would keep on doing that, until Sam was right back where he belonged.

**Early October, 1990**

"Dean...here's a hall pass. You need to visit the counselor."

Bent over his desk, putting minimal effort into a graphing assignment, Dean looked up at his teacher. She was leaning over him, keeping her voice quiet so none of the other students around him could hear. He scowled at the slip of blue paper that she was offering him. She was a younger woman, even younger than his dad, which set her apart from a lot of the teachers he'd had over the years. He didn't like her, even though he could tell his classmates did, with the pale brown hair that she loosely braided and her wide blue eyes and her flower-print blouses. But she didn't follow the unwritten script that he expected teachers to, when he was in their class. She didn't ignore him as soon as he made it obvious he didn't care about school. She tried to give him extra credit so he could bring his grades up, she came over to his desk to help him with his work, she attempted to involve him in the class. She was way too interested in him, and that automatically made him uncomfortable. She was an outsider. She shouldn't care about him.

"Why?" Dean demanded, leaning back in his seat and folding his arms defiantly across his chest.

"She wants to talk to you," his teacher said softly. "I asked her to."

"Why the hell would you do that?" He fidgeted, uneasy behind his caustic tone.

"Watch your language," she reprimanded him, but there was no real anger in her voice. "School words only." She hesitated, before continuing. "Dean, I'm...concerned about you. The counselor - Mrs. Wells - can tell you more."

He didn't move, unconvinced. His dad hadn't prepped him for this exact situation, but he was pretty sure he knew what to do. He didn't like this at all. Fortunately, it had seemed, last night, like Dad's hunt was wrapping up, so they'd probably be out of here before whatever was going on with his teacher could get any worse.

"You get to miss class," she coaxed, holding the hall pass a little closer to him. He examined it warily, then took it, making a big show of only using the tips of his fingers. Missing class meant that he couldn't be yelled at for not doing assignments he wouldn't've done anyway.

He didn't see anyone at all in the halls until he reached the heavy wooden door on the other end of the school, with _Janina Wells - School Counselor_ engraved in its brassy plaque. He only knew where it was because he passed it every day on the way to lunch. Which was coming up soon - this lady'd better not keep him through it. Sammy would be terrified if Dean wasn't around to sit with him. He wouldn't know what had happened.

He hoped he could find someone else, and wouldn't sit alone, if Dean didn't show up. He knew that there were kids in Sammy's class who liked him and who he liked back. Maybe it would even be good for him to socialize with some of them.

That didn't mean he would be okay with basically being forced to abandon him, though.

Janina Wells was a severe-looking woman, but Dean wasn't intimidated. He'd seen a crazed werewolf, chained to a cement pylon under an overpass so Dad and a hunter friend of his could show him what one looked like before they killed it, and normal humans just didn't scare him anymore. He eyed the wide streaks of gray in her hair and the outdated motivational posters on the walls as he pulled out the plastic chair in front of her desk and sat. No, he wasn't intimidated. Even though she had a thick file in front of her that had to be his, and her desk - made of some glossy red wood - was big and ornate enough to dominate the tiny room.

Mrs. Wells smiled at him. He didn't smile back.

"Dean Winchester?" she asked, sounding like someone who already knew she was right.

"That's my name, don't wear it out," he replied, slouching in the chair. She smiled again. He didn't trust her.

"I'm very glad you came to see me, Dean," she said, leaning forward and folding her hands on top of the file.

"I'm not sure I had all that much of a choice," he said, folding his arms in an unconscious imitation of her.

"Well, still." She regarded him with careful, kind brown eyes. "Let's talk about school, Dean. How are you doing in class? Do you like it?"

"No, it's useless. And I suck at it. I'm failing, but I don't care."

"Why are you failing?"

"I never do my homework."

"Why not?"

He swallowed. _I didn't do my book report 'cause my dad needed my help tracking the pair of zombies he's after. I never finished my essay on the Panama Canal because I was learning how to stab something through the ribs and hit its heart. I lost my science worksheet because, one of those zombies? It was outside our motel room one night, and my dad was busy with the other one across town, and I had to keep my little brother from finding out what it was. I had to protect him, because he was so scared._ He shrugged, but didn't answer.

Mrs. Wells nodded, still looking at him. "And why do you think it's useless, what you're learning?"

"'Cause I don't need to know it. It's not important." He shrugged again. "I'm gonna do what my dad does when I grow up, and he's teaching me everything I gotta know for that."

"And your father is...?" She made a tiny "go on" motion with her hands.

"A - " _Hunter. He's a hero, he saves people. He kills monsters. And that's what I'm gonna do._ " - mechanic."

Mrs. Wells frowned down at his file. "It says here that your father - John - is the sole guardian of you and your younger brother. And you have no fixed address."

"Nope."

She looked back up at him and leaned forward again, quietly saying, "Dean, I would like it very much if you told me about your home life."

"What do you want to know? It's fine." Dean shrugged for a third time. "Dad's awesome, I've got Sammy. We're great."

"Did you know that Ms. Trevois has tried very hard - and failed - to get an audience with your father so they can discuss your grades?" she asked.

He almost asked who the hell she was talking about, before realizing that "Ms. Trevois" must be his teacher. He shrugged, yet again, before saying, "He's busy."

"How often is your father at home, Dean?"

"Enough," Dean answered shortly. He'd been warned, multiple times, about people who asked too many questions - especially these sorts of questions. His family might not be totally conventional, but he didn't need anyone taking him away from it.

"Okay." Mrs. Wells wrote something down. He couldn't help but wonder what it was. "I think we should talk about your brother now. Sam. He's in...first grade, right?"

"Second," Dean responded automatically. "His teacher's Mr. Zhang."

"How do you feel about him?" she asked, watching him. "Your brother, I mean."

"I...he's my little brother." He looked down at his lap. He didn't like the direction that this was going in. He couldn't help but remember what he had been thinking this morning, about how if, anyone ever found out about what he was doing with Sammy, they'd freak out.

"That doesn't really answer my question," she prompted gently.

"He's okay," Dean said stiffly, unfolding his arms to grip the sides of his seat. He worked at the solid plastic with his fingers.

"How much time do you spend with him?"

"Um. A lot, 'cause, y'know. I kind of have to." He gave her a tiny, tense smile.

"Do you ever leave Sam alone to do things with your friends?"

"No. No way." He shook his head. "I wouldn't do that. He'd be scared if he was all alone."

Mrs. Wells nodded again, and wrote something else down. "You two seem very close."

"Yep." He fidgeted, looking anywhere but at her. "Look. Lady. Can I go yet?"

She ignored him, tipping her head to the side just a little. "Dean..."

He wished she'd stop saying his name.

"Has anyone ever suggested to you that your relationship with your brother might not be...healthy?"

"Excuse me?" He blinked, and then looked at her with a scowl. "Why the hell'd you think that?" He swallowed, but managed to maintain his scowl. "He _needs_ me. He's just...he's little, still. He needs me."

"I'm not sure he needs everything you're providing for him," she told him. Dean, slumped sullenly in his chair, raised an eyebrow, but didn't offer any other response. His heart beat faster, and he willed it to slow down. Not to give away his uneasiness. "Ms. Trevois - and other teachers - told me that they've seen you two kissing, and touching each other inappropriately, on several occasions."

Dean's internal organs froze into a solid lump of ice.

"I need you to explain the extent of your relationship with Sam to me," Mrs. Wells said. "When was the first time you touched him...like that?"

"You think I'm some kind of pervert," Dean said. It wasn't a question.

"No, I don't. I'm just concerned. I realize you two probably weren't raised normally - "

"So you're gonna blame my dad. 'Cause you think I've been giving my baby brother the bad touch," Dean interrupted, sitting up straight. He was angry now. And maybe that came from being afraid, but the ice inside him was rapidly melting "Oh, my _God_. I've been protecting him since he was six months old, I don't even know what I'd do without him, I'd _die_ to keep him safe - how can you think I'd hurt him like that?"

"You obviously don't have ordinary boundaries," Mrs. Wells said calmly. "I understand you might not know it's wrong."

"Oh, I _know_ it's wrong, but I'm not having sex with Sammy, no matter what you might think," Dean snapped. "Me and him - it's none of your business. Not at all, okay? We can handle ourselves. I can take care of him."

"I'm sure you can, Dean, but - "

"I don't want your help." He cut her off. "I don't _need_ your help. Neither of us do, because we have each other." He swallowed. "I have never hurt him. Not ever. And I never, ever would. Whatever we're doing right now - _and it's not having sex_ \- it makes us happy, and that isn't really something we get a whole lot of." He stood up. "You don't get to take that away from us. From him. He deserves a whole lot better, but this is all I can give him right now."

Mrs. Wells didn't say anything as he turned and stalked to the door. But she spoke up when his hand was on the knob. "Dean, you think you're protecting your brother..."

"I know I'm protecting him." Dean shot a glance at her over his shoulder. "No one does it better than me, because there's no one in the world he means more to."

He left, fully expecting to be ordered back at any second, but that didn't happen. She let him go back to class. He knew Ms. Trevois's eyes were on him as he sat back down at his desk, but he refused to look at her. He hadn't liked her before. Now, he hated her. She had meddled. She had stuck her nose into all his private family stuff. She had...his throat tightened, just thinking about the possibility of what might have happened. She had tried to take Sammy away from him. He wouldn't have been able to bear that. Neither of them would've - and that made her a threat to his little brother.

Dean didn't see Sammy until after school, right after Dad failed to show and he resigned himself to walking home in the cold. He hadn't gone to find him at lunch, because he knew Sammy would run to him and hug him tightly, and he didn't want to deal with the consequences of that if some teacher saw. But, now, the second graders were being released, and his brother's big hazel eyes immediately fastened on him. With a tiny squeak of joy, he bolted over and threw his arms around him, burying his face in his chest. Dean hugged him back, suddenly not caring who saw them. It felt so unbelievably good to still have him, be able to hug him and hold him close. He shuddered at the thought of what almost happened...and what might still happen. Extremely aware of their surroundings, he let go of his little brother and stepped away from him. Thankfully, he didn't seem to think it was weird.

"Where were you at lunch?" Those were Sammy's first words to him, immediate and accusing as he tipped his round face up. Dean sighed.

"I...look, it's a long story. Tell you later, okay?"

He seemed to accept that. Maybe because it didn't seem to be bothering Dean, like the last thing he'd refused to talk to him about had. He moved closer to him again and took his hand (which Dean figured was okay to do in public, he saw lots of siblings holding hands), staying close in the river of kids leaving school, and looked around.

"Where's Dad?" he asked. His tone was perfectly even. Dean got the idea that he was already expecting the answer he was going to have to give him, before he even said a word. That somehow made him sad.

"Not here, obviously," he replied. "C'mon, Sammy. We can walk. Tell me if your feet get too cold, and I'll carry you."

"'Kay." Sammy obediently followed him, looking up. He gave him a tiny smile and squeezed Dean's large hand with his small one. "'M glad I have you."

"Goes both ways," Dean told him softly, a smile spreading across his face as Sammy nuzzled against him for a second. As he did that, the gesture full of love and affection, Dean happened to glance over his shoulder. He saw Ms. Trevois, herding kids onto their correct buses - and looking over at them. Again.

He nudged Sammy away from him, suddenly afraid. He didn't want her to see, he didn't want her to know - because this was so private, what they had and what he felt, and it was so special. And she'd already showed him that she was more than willing to destroy it. He knew Sammy was on the verge of sulking, because he'd basically pushed him away, but he could deal with that later. He just hoped to God that his teacher hadn't seen.

He would never know if she did or not, because his father would kill both zombies that night and they would leave in the morning. But he hoped she hadn't. He was scared, for himself and his brother. He wouldn't completely reject him again, because that would do way more harm than good, but they had to stop touching and kissing so much in public. No matter how much they both liked it.

He had to protect him.


	12. Chapter Twelve

"Would you rather sit in the back?"

Dean's question startled Sam out of the daze he'd been in since breakfast, making him look up fast and meet his brother's eyes over the roof of the Impala. Automatically, his own gaze skated away. He didn't make a conscious decision to look in some other direction. It just sort of…happened.

"I mean, if you're uncomfortable. Or something." Listening to him, Sam's hand shifted slightly where it was already on the handle of the passenger door. He didn't sound angry, or malicious, or even bitter, like he had the last time they fought. Just…emotionless. Almost completely blank. Sam felt a sudden, intense stab of guilt and he did his best to push it away by telling himself that he'd done the right thing. But he couldn't quite get rid of it.

"No, I…I'm fine," he said quietly, yanking the door open. "Don't worry about it."

The movement made his shoulders, back, and chest, still criss-crossed with stitches that were small and neat because of years of practice, sting and ache. He'd shied away from stronger (and, now that he thought about it, probably illegally-obtained) pain medication that morning, only taking a couple of aspirin at breakfast. He sort of regretted that now. The pain reminded him of last night – warmth, safety, arms gently cradling his upper body. He really couldn't afford to think about that.

"So. Robbi's house?" Dean asked, joining Sam in the car after watching him carefully fold himself into the passenger seat. Even through the bandages that he'd clumsily wound around himself, his T-shirt and jacket rubbed painfully against his wounds every time he moved. Today was really going to suck.

_For more reasons than one, _he realized gloomily, feeling Dean's cold, detached gaze on him.__

__He nodded. "We didn't exactly get the chance to really look around last night. And we might find something in daylight that we couldn't pick out in the dark._ _

__Dean grunted in something that might've been agreement, and started the car. Sam settled back against the seat, waited for the inevitable pain to fade, and considered what they might be dealing with. He told himself, firmly, that it wasn't to distract himself from other thoughts; it was just so he could be a little more useful in the hunt than he had been last night. It obviously wasn't anything they'd ever come across before, because he was pretty sure he would've remembered it. He hadn't exactly gotten a good look at it as it was dropping onto and mauling him, and he was pretty sure that Dean hadn't, either. He would've said something if he had._ _

__Sam'd looked at the bite on his chest in the mirror before he showered, and the scratches that raked over most of the rest of his upper body. Whatever it had been had had five claw-tipped fingers on its hands or forepaws or whatever, and four on its hind ones. Assuming that the former had been ripping at his shoulders and chest while the latter dug into his back. The bite almost looked like it'd come from a human mouth (albeit one full of massive, dog-like fangs), but that didn't tell him much. Only that he'd better pray it hadn't been a werewolf or something else that spread its affliction through biting that'd gotten its teeth into him._ _

__But he'd seen a werewolf bite before. At thirteen, when he and his family had been after one and some poor idiot had gotten in the way early on. They were nasty, and they healed within minutes, as their victim's body changed into that of a super-powered monster. And while Sam's wounds looked pretty good for the morning after – they'd bled a little during the night, sure, and the skin around them was pink and tender, but not in an infected way – they definitely weren't gone. So…not a werewolf._ _

__That didn't mean it couldn't be something else horrible and completely inhuman, a new one of which he was turning into as he sat here. But that was another thing he couldn't afford to think about._ _

__When they reached Robbi Jones's house, after a short, silent drive, he saw the curtains in her front window twitch. She must've looked out when she heard the car pulling up. He wondered if she'd be glad to see them or not. On one hand, they were supposedly FBI agents tracking down her sister's killer. On the other, pretty much all they'd done to find said killer was get attacked on her property._ _

__After cutting the engine and getting out, Dean cursed at something. Sam followed him to see him scowling down at his phone._ _

__"D'you have service here?" he asked, glancing up and fixing him with what he'd probably tried pretty hard to make into a casual expression. Some steely emotion still shone through, and Sam looked away before he could tell what it was._ _

__"Uh…" He reached for the pocket of his jeans, which he'd automatically tossed his cell phone into on their way out the door. "Why do you want to know?"_ _

__"'Cause, this time, if that thing hurts one of us…" Dean walked around to the trunk, and Sam heard him prop open and grab something from the arsenal. A second later, he reappeared on his side of the car, tucking a handgun into his waistband and offering a second one to Sam, grip-first. He took it, and closed his eyes with a brief, imperceptible shiver as his fingers brushed Dean's. "…we're calling an ambulance."_ _

___So that what happened last night doesn't happen again._ That was the unspoken reasoning behind what he'd just said, and Sam knew it. He thought he was being punished, for a second. And then his priorities realigned, and he realized that Dean was actually trying to give him exactly what he wanted. He wasn't lashing out at him, he wasn't trying to provoke him. He just wanted to make him happy._ _

__That realization made Sam's stomach knot itself up in sudden guilt, though he knew it shouldn't've. To try and cover up what he was feeling, he looked down at his phone as he shoved the gun into the back of his pants and tugged his jacket down to hide it. And he had to fight a cringe._ _

__Four missed calls. All from Jess – two from last night, two from earlier this morning. Of course. He hadn't called her yesterday, after sticking to his promise religiously for so long. She would be concerned. Maybe even a little afraid, since he'd also failed to call or even pick up today. He'd had his phone on vibrate, and he'd been…distracted, every time she called. He hadn't heard it._ _

__"Oh, shit," he murmured, another sinking, guilty feeling taking root in his guts. This one, though, was perfectly okay._ _

__"What is it?" Dean asked, studying him. He'd folded his arms as he waited, and now he leaned around him a little in order to look at the door of Robbi's house as it opened._ _

__"Jess…she's called me, like, four times; she's gotta be freaking out." Sam caught Dean raising an eyebrow and mouthing the words "overly attached," and felt a flash of anger. But he let it go. He'd meant what he'd said earlier, about not wanting to fight. Which meant that he couldn't believe it when he just up and blurted out, "How come you didn't tell me my phone was buzzing?"_ _

__"Had other stuff on my mind, Sam." Dean pushed past him in order to greet Robbi, whose footsteps he could hear approaching behind him. Their arms brushed, and even though his jacket meant that there was no skin-on-skin contact, Sam shivered again anyway. "Y'know. You were bitten, you were bleeding to death, you were…" He trailed off, and the crunching of his boots in the gravel driveway stopped. "There was just a whole lot of stuff going on last night. I had better things to do than listen for your phone."_ _

__Sam turned to see Dean extend a hand to a nearby Robbi, who clasped it and smiled up at him. This was probably the first time she'd gotten a good look at him, since he'd been covered in blood and hellbent on getting an injured Sam home last night, in the dark. He saw her pale amber eyes travel up and down Dean's body, from his sturdy legs to the sweep of his almost-golden hair, with shy approval. He couldn't stop a sudden flutter of almost-possessive jealousy. Gritting his teeth, he shoved his hands into his pockets and walked over to stand beside Dean. He wished he knew how to fix what was wrong with himself._ _

__"Agent Dean Waters," Dean was introducing himself. "Sorry we never really got properly introduced…and you already know my partner, Agent Sam Mason."_ _

__"Yes," Robbi replied, nodding. She folded her arms, an insecure gesture, as her gaze drifted from Dean to Sam and became anxious. "Are you…are you okay, Agent Mason? Last night – there was a lot of blood – "_ _

__"I'm fine, Sam assured her, offering a smile that he knew had to look stiff and weary. "I got stitched up before I lost too much blood, and the wounds are clean. I'm a little stiff, but it doesn't really hurt anymore."_ _

__Robbi blinked. "Um…okay. Wow." Sam barely had time to realize that maybe even FBI agents didn't basically just shake off what'd happened to him when she added, "Do you want to look around the garden again?"_ _

__"Please." Dean gave her a winning smile. Sam's jealousy made an unwelcome return. "Agent Mason. While I take a look and talk to Ms. Jones, d'you wanna…call our supervisor?"_ _

__The way he'd raised his eyebrows let Sam know that he was talking about Jess. He nodded and turned away, grateful, and glanced down at his phone to dial. As he pressed it to his ear, he heard Dean and Robbi talking as she led him into the garden._ _

__"So, um…no suits today?"_ _

__Dean laughed briefly, in that charming way that Sam was convinced made women of all ages drop their panties without even thinking about it. "Nope. We only brought the one each. His is torn all to hell, and mine's covered with blood…so. Did you hear any more weird sounds last night, after we left?"_ _

__Sam had to pull his attention away from them when Jess picked up on the second ring with an anxious, "Sam?"_ _

__"Hi, Jess," he said. He could feel a sheepish smile on his face, almost a grimace, even though he knew she couldn't actually see him. It was an automatic reaction._ _

__"Are you okay?" She sounded so concerned, which made him feel terrible. And there was just the barest hint of anger in her voice. _You promised to call me, you didn't, and I was worried._ He'd have to be careful not to inflame that; Jess could be a real spitfire when she wanted to. He hated when she got worked up. Especially when he was the reason. "Sam, why didn't you call me last night? Or earlier this morning?" She laughed, suddenly, but it was a tight, worried sound. "I'm sorry. I sound way too possessive, don't I?"_ _

__"No, not at all." He closed his eyes and leaned slightly against the Impala. Listening to her, even when she was worried about and mad at him, was therapeutic. He frowned a little. Just…not as therapeutic as it usually was. Hearing her voice and imagining himself back in California with her, with an arm around her and her head on his shoulder as they watched TV or studied, wasn't enough to scratch the almost-painful itch he'd had under his skin since he woke up. " _I'm_ sorry. I'm really sorry. I mean, I told you I'd call, then I didn't. Of course you were worried." Sam shook his head, even though, again, he knew it would be lost on her. "Again. I'm so sorry. I guess I just…I forgot, with the painkillers and the stitches and the whole mess with Dean – "_ _

__"Wait. What? Painkillers?" Jess sounded shocked. He imagined her eyes widening. "Why were you taking painkillers? And what did you mean about stitches? How does your brother come into this?"_ _

__"Uh," Sam began, with the sudden, perfectly-calm realization that he was probably going to screw this up and there wasn't anything he could do about it. "I got…hurt." He heard her sharp intake of breath, and winced. "Not bad. I'm fine today. A raccoon got me or something, it doesn't really matter. The scratches aren't infected, and Dean's good at sewing, so they're gonna stay closed until they heal."_ _

__"Your – your brother gave you stitches?" Jess asked disbelievingly. "Oh, my God, Sam…why on Earth didn't you go to a hospital? Isn't there one where you are?"_ _

__"Yes, but it was just easier to let him do it." Sam rubbed a hand over his face. He remembered the first time he'd made love with Jess. Her fingers running over the numerous scars on his torso and legs as he asked him exactly how he'd gotten each and every one. He'd told her he honestly didn't remember, with most of them; he'd just had an exciting childhood. He could imagine her reaction to this new set, when he finally went home. "I mean, I have insurance – barely – but I'm not sure that it would cover me out here. You know we can't afford that kind of expense. And Dean…" Unconsciously, Sam's free hand went to the bite on his chest. His fingers traced the stitches through the thin cotton of his shirt. "Like I said, he's good at this. He knew what he was doing."_ _

__He'd known how to dress his wounds…and he'd known how to take care of him afterwards. Sam shut his eyes tighter and rubbed at them with one hand. He thought about kissing Jess, and sleeping beside her, and holding her slim, feminine body on the rare occasions that she'd wanted to cuddle after sex. But it didn't work. Flooding his mind with thoughts of his girlfriend didn't distract him. A frustrated, desperate groan forced its way out of him before he could stop it._ _

__Apparently, it was loud enough for the speaker in his cell phone to transmit it, because he couldn't help but feel a little heartbroken at the terrified note in Jess's voice as she asked, "Sam? What was that? What did you do?"_ _

__"Nothing, calm down." He opened his eyes and stared, hopelessly, at scenery he wasn't really seeing. "I just...things are tough. Complicated. Between me and Dean, I mean. Again."_ _

__"Are you two fighting again?" she asked softly. Sam found himself touched by the sympathy in her voice. Even if she couldn't totally fix everything, she could still make him feel better. "I get that. You're hurting, and he's probably worried about you, so it's not surprising..."_ _

__"No, Jess...no, we're not fighting. Not really." Sam bit his lower lip and worked it between his teeth, not checking the amount of pain and regret and longing that he allowed into his voice. "I think I hurt him. I didn't mean to, I didn't want to...but I had to. And I did. And now he's, I don't know, just _detached_. It's like he's...broken, or something."_ _

__"It sounds like he's not the only one." Her response was immediate and gentle, and Sam blinked._ _

__"What? No. I - Jess, I'm fine." He shifted his weight against the car._ _

__"Please. I've been living with you for over a year and a half now; I think I know when something's bothering you," Jess replied, her tone almost playful. "And right now, I can tell that you're _really_ bothered. Even over the phone."_ _

__A heavy sigh was his only response. She continued. "He's your brother, Sam. It's normal to hate it when he's mad at you, and to care about him."_ _

___Not like I do. You don't understand. I hope to God you never do - I hope this whole thing's over soon._ _ _

__"Can you tell me just what it was you did to hurt him?" She paused for a moment. "Maybe I could help you fix things, if I knew."_ _

___I told him I didn't want to start sleeping with him again._ Sam was reminded of another part of the first time he'd had sex with Jess. When she'd smiled at his shy, clumsy movements and kindly asked him what the problem was. If he'd ever done with sort of thing before. He'd drowned his _Well, not with a woman..._ response by kissing her. But he couldn't do that now. He knew he had to be so careful with what he told her, so she didn't find out that she was only the second real lover he'd ever had - and that the first had been his brother._ _

__"Sam? Are you still there?" she pressed, breaking him out of his thoughts. When he reassured her of his presence, Jess asked, "Did you shove him again?"_ _

__"No, I didn't do that." God forbid. This dormant part of him that was waking up more and more as he spent time around Dean would've howled in anguish, if he'd done anything physical. As it was, it was crying and whimpering somewhere in his chest. "It's...look, I said something to him, and there was a lot to it. Stuff that goes back pretty far."_ _

__She got the hint. He loved her for it, and tried to convince himself that he found that fulfilling._ _

__"Are you sure you don't want to talk about it?" Jess asked him. She sounded disappointed, but understanding._ _

__"You'll be the first person to know if I do," Sam said. "Promise." Maybe that wasn't a good idea, seeing how his last couple of promises had turned out, but she seemed to take it to heart anyway._ _

__"And you're not hurt bad enough to come home?" she asked._ _

__"I'm functioning," he assured her._ _

__"You should go to a hospital when you have time," she told him. He recognized her "nurse-in-training" voice. "I'm sure Dean's good at giving stitches, but you should at least get yourself checked out. I mean, if it was a raccoon - you might need a rabies shot, or a tetanus booster."_ _

__"Okay," Sam agreed, knowing that neither him nor Dean would get anywhere near a hospital unless one of them was holding his own intestines in his hands. He didn't tell her that, though. He didn't tell her that he'd been bitten, either, or that rabies was the least of his concerns about it._ _

__Once Jess knew that he loved her, and vice-versa, he hung up. He'd barely put his phone back into his pocket when Dean called him into the garden._ _

__"Sam! Come over here and take a look at this." When Sam reached him and Robbi, standing next to a raised flowerbed full of overflowing mounds of moss rose and one flowering tree, Dean waved a hand at the dirt in it. "Tell me what you think of that."_ _

__Sam looked down. There was a crisp trail of perfectly-formed prints in the damp, richly-black earth. It basically looked like a pretty big dog had wandered through the bed. His brain insisted that something was slightly off here, but since he couldn't pick it out after about ten seconds of puzzling over it, he figured it couldn't be very important._ _

__"You...found a dog," he said blankly. That could definitely be what had been making the noises outside of Robbi's house, but he hadn't been attacked by a dog - and a dog hadn't torn all those people to pieces. "Um. Congratulations."_ _

__"Uh-huh...a dog." Dean gave him an unimpressed look, then glanced up into the tree branches above them. Sam mirrored him, not sure what he was looking at. Until a pale flower with a familiar scent drifted down to land on his forehead. He brushed it off and looked at the prints in a new light; this was the same tree that the creature that'd bitten him had dropped from. "Little bit of a coincidence, don't you think?"_ _

__"Mm," Sam agreed, cocking his head to get a better angle. He knew he was missing something here. He didn't realize that the position might be interpreted as cute until Dean chuckled a little. He probably hadn't even meant to, but Sam looked at him before he could stop himself. Dean looked away with a muttered apology, but not before Sam caught something hard in his eyes. Harder, even, than the blankness that had been there earlier that morning._ _

__Robbi didn't notice the admittedly-weird exchange. She had moved a little ways away and appeared to be completely preoccupied with the glossy leaves of a bush, a mournful expression on her face. Sam guessed that she was thinking about her sister. He immediately wanted to help, despite the fact that he couldn't even deal with his own emotional problems, but he forced himself to stay where he was. There were priorities in hunting. Kill the monster first, comfort the grieving woman second._ _

__Dean took advantage of the fact that she wasn't paying attention to them to cough and say, "Okay. So. What d'you think it is?"_ _

__Sam shrugged. "You've been doing this longer than I have...and you got a better look at the thing."_ _

__"Work with me here," he said, and it was somewhere between a request and a command. "You've got a better mind for lore than I do. Always have. So...skinwalker? Black Dog? Tell me if you think it could be one of those."_ _

__He looked back at the prints, frowning. "I don't think so."_ _

__"Why not?"_ _

__"Those have fangs and claws, sure, and they eat people...but skinwalkers and Black Dogs both have four paws," he explained, starting to realize what was up with the paw prints. "This thing only had two."_ _

__"How can you tell?" Dean asked, folding his arms across his chest._ _

__"Well, look at the prints, and watch me walk." Sam took a few steps away from him, then looked back over his shoulder, knowing that the two patterns would be basically the same. "Get it? Whatever it is, it walks upright on two dog paws, which really narrows down our possibilities." He turned around. Dean nodded._ _

__"D'you know about anything like that?" he asked. Sam shook his head, then looked away; maintaining eye contact was too hard. It made him feel too much. He thought he heard Dean sigh exasperatedly before saying, "Okay, the motel has free wi-fi. You can get on your laptop and surf around soon as we get back. Right now, though, let's see if this thing left us any other clues."_ _

__They looked, combing over the entire garden, while Robbi watched detachedly from a distance. Sam was extremely aware of Dean as they failed to find anything interesting. The way the slanting sunlight of early morning lit up his hair and eyes, the downy hair that was standing up on the backs of his bare arms in the fall chill, how his scent cut through the overpowering smell of flowers when they were close enough to each other. But things were pretty uneventful until Dean - gently, so as not to aggravate his stitches - grabbed onto his shoulder with a, "Whoa, don't step on that."_ _

__It was another piece of some abdominal organ, like the intestine segment that they'd seen last night. It was already soft with rot, though the flowers had masked the smell, and Sam was admittedly glad that he hadn't had to scrape it off his boot. But he wasn't really focusing on that right now. Dean's hand was on him, heat pouring right through his jacket and into his very core. He wanted to lean into the touch with a groan of contentment. He should've just thanked him, shrugged off his hand, and kept walking. Instead, he panicked, flinched, and shied away from his older brother's amazing touch._ _

__Dean's first reaction wasn't that bad. His face, when Sam caught sight of it, was anxious and concerned as he said, "Oh, God, I'm sorry. Did I hurt you?"_ _

__"No," Sam sad, without thinking. His heart rate was through the roof and he was starting to breathe like he'd just run a marathon. He wanted to be touched again...but, of course, he couldn't say that. He couldn't even think it._ _

__Dean's concern faded immediately, and he arched an eyebrow. Sam swallowed, looking away and staring intensely at a nearby flowerbed. He could feel his brother's anger and pain like they were his own. He knew exactly what was coming, and he clenched his hands into white-knuckled fists as he prayed for strength._ _

__"So you spooked just 'cause I touched you," Dean noted. He shook his head and turned away, heading for Robbi. Who had been their original destination, since there was nothing else here that meant anything to them and they needed to tell her they were leaving. "Can't keep doing this, Sam."_ _

__"I'm sorry," Sam murmured, staring helplessly at his back as he trailed after him. He didn't know what else to say._ _

__"No," Dean began matter-of-factly, "you're not." Right before they came into range of Robbi's ears, he turned around and gave him a steady glance. "You're not sorry at all, so don't pretend you are."_ _

__Sam couldn't respond to that, not with Robbi around. So he hung back and waited, wondering desperately how to fix this, while Dean stiffly told her that they hadn't found anything and were going to leave. Her eyes darted between the two of them as he spoke, small white teeth working at her lower lip, and Sam honestly wasn't surprised by her obvious concern. It would've taken a miracle for her to not pick up on at least something between them. They were broadcasting hostility and pain so strong that even a blind person probably would have noticed it._ _

__"Is...something wrong?" she asked uncertainly. "Agents, did something happen?"_ _

__"No," they replied in unison, Dean obviously doing a really bad job of restraining the anger that must've been bubbling under his cool exterior all morning, and Sam so subdued that it came out as a murmur. She looked back and forth between them again, concern evident in her expression. But she must have decided not to get involved, because she gave them a soft thank-you and then wandered back to her house._ _

__"I'm trying to apologize," Sam told Dean quietly after they'd left the garden and were headed for the Impala, keeping his voice calm. He shouldn't've flinched. He'd pissed him off, and that was the one thing that he hadn't wanted to do._ _

__"Don't bother." Dean wouldn't look at him as he shook his head again, pulling the door on the driver's side open after tossing his gun - and Sam's, which had been trusted to him a couple minutes ago, after talking to Robbi - into the trunk. "I don't care."_ _

__"Obviously, you _do_ \- Dean, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to hurt you," Sam said, ducking into the car. There, he'd said it. He'd told him that. He'd let him know he cared, even though he shouldn't._ _

__"Oh, come on, don't lie to me." He started the car. "You _like_ hurting me. It makes you feel good, I can tell. Because you've somehow managed to convince yourself that I raped you or something when we were little."_ _

__"I don't think that - "_ _

__"Well, you obviously think _something_ that makes you hate me. That makes you cringe with disgust every time I so much as shoot a glance your way," Dean snapped, eyes fixed on the road._ _

__"I don't want to do this," Sam told him firmly. Maybe he could still avert a fight, like he had that morning. He wanted a fight less now than he ever had in his entire life. His stitches hurt and his heart felt like it was twisted into a knot. He didn't know what to do beyond trying to calm Dean down._ _

__"No. No, of course you don't," Dean agreed. "'Cause it's easier for you to just pretend that we never did anything, and you never begged to be held and touched, and you never loved me." Before Sam could even try to defend himself, he continued. "That last one, though - that might be true. In fact, I'm starting to think it is. You never felt a fucking thing for me, did you? You just stuck with the whole thing because it felt good."_ _

__That hurt. It shouldn't, but it did. Sam took a deep breath, trying to calm himself down. But he was getting angry now, and he couldn't stop it._ _

__"You have no right to accuse me of that," he said in a low voice._ _

__"I have every right," Dean shot back. He finally looked at him, furious. "It's the only explanation I can think of, here. Why else would you be acting like you are?"_ _

__"Like what, Dean?" Sam demanded, knowing it sounded malicious and condescending. In the passenger seat, he'd unconsciously angled himself so he and Dean wouldn't brush against each other at all, even accidentally. His brother gestured to reference that, the motion jerky._ _

__"Like _that_. I've tried, Sam. I've tried real hard to make you happy. I haven't touched you, I haven't brought up what things used to be like for us - hell, I haven't even called you anything you don't want to be called." He was really getting worked up now, and Sam couldn't stop his own emotions from responding to that. Some part of him, still calm and rational, was a little concerned that they might crash, but Dean had always been a remarkably good driver under pressure. "And maybe I could've done that for the rest of our lives. It would've hurt, but I could've done it, because I really believed that you didn't want anything else from me. And I put your feelings first - just like always."_ _

__"Come on," Sam started, scorn heavy in his voice. "You can't seriously expect me to believe that - "_ _

__"Shut up," Dena interrupted fiercely, stabbing an index finger at him. "Okay? I have been putting up with all your stupid shit for a whole week now, and I still have bruises on my chest where you hit me - "_ _

__"I _pushed_ you, I didn't - "_ _

__"I said, _shut up_." Sam did as he was told, suddenly seven years old again and perfectly obedient to Dean, because Dean loved him and always knew best. "Listen to me. Don't you think you owe me that much?" Once it became obvious that Sam was going to listen, he continued. "So. Yeah. I figured I was doing what was best for you, what you wanted. And then, last night, you practically crawled into my lap and begged to be held. You wanted me close to you. You wanted me touching you. You just _wanted_ me. And I was so happy. You know why, Sam?"_ _

__Sam didn't answer, hunching his shoulders inwards. He wanted to say something, convey something to Dean, but he didn't know what. He was aching like he had the last time they'd been fighting, but, this time, he knew why._ _

__"You probably don't care." Dean watched the road, green eyes hooded. "I was happy because I haven't felt whole, or like a real person, since you left two years ago. And I finally had you back." He shrugged, a quick twitch of his shoulders. "Then, today, you don't want anything to do with me again. You flinch when I touch you and you won't even look at me. Can you understand why I'm confused, Sam? Can you understand why I'm pissed at you?"_ _

__"I told you, last night, I was full of painkillers and whiskey, and I wasn't exactly thinking straight," Sam pointed out through gritted teeth. "I don't want - "_ _

__"But you _do_ ," Dean snapped back, cutting him off. "Booze just gets rid of your inhibitions, and you know it." He looked at him, eyes hard, and shook his head. "Look, I'm sorry I said you never loved me. Shouldn't've said that, it was dirty and probably wasn't true, but...because...some part of you loved what we had, and wants it back. Some part of you still feels something pretty damn powerful. Just like I do - but you won't even admit it." He rubbed a hand over his face. Sam looked at his eyelashes, the shape of his nose, his stubble...and bit his lip. "You loved me again, for at least one night. And now you're acting like there was never anything there at all. And I can't live like that."_ _

__"Dean I'm your _brother_ ," Sam told him, fully aware he was almost yelling. "I don't care _what_ you feel - " He flinched, just a little, and Sam hated himself with a passion. " - or what I feel. I realize you didn't molest me, or anything like that."_ _

__"Oh, so you can admit that now, huh? Great progress, Sam, now you're about as mature as you were when you were _three_."_ _

__"But both of us are adults now, and I can make my own decisions," he continued, forcibly ignoring him. " _Good_ decisions. And one of those is not to commit incest with you again."_ _

__"If you'd quit acting all high and mighty and listen to me, maybe you could figure out - " They were in the parking lot of their motel now. Dean hadn't even cut the engine yet, but Sam shoved his door open before he could finish talking anyway. He heard him yelling at him as he bolted across the sidewalk and fumbled with the room key. He didn't bother locking the door, or even closing it, once he was in; he just stood with his back to it and his broad shoulders hunched. Dean followed him through the doorway ten seconds later, and he felt a hand grip the back of his jacket, spinning him around as his older brother snarled, "Think you could stop being a selfish dick for about five minutes?"_ _

__"What the hell do you want from me?" Sam yelled, backing away from Dean's muscular, seething figure. His green eyes were bright with something halfway between absolute hate and fierce love, and he was practically glowing with the force of his anger. Sam hadn't realized it until now, but his cock was throbbing in his jeans. The sexual tension (for him, at least) was so thick it could practically stop a bullet. Some part of him wondered if Dean felt it, too. "Besides to bend me over and fuck me sensele - "_ _

___"I don't want that!"_ Dean's furious roar shocked Sam into silence. "I don't want to have sex with you. Well, I mean, I do...but I'm not gonna, because you don't wanna. None of this has ever been about the sex, or just about the sex, at least, and I thought I showed you that, but - I guess I didn't." He stepped forward, until they were standing chest-to-chest. Sam had to remind himself that he was bigger than him, or he wouldn't've been able to tell. "I _want_ to know why you hate me so much. What the hell I did to deserve so much crap from you. Why you're hellbent on not being with me _at all_."_ _

__"I have a girlfriend," Sam growled._ _

__"Okay, then, why'd you leave me in the first place, huh?" Dean's eyes, glittering like sunlight bouncing off of ice and looking just as cold, swept over his face. "What's wrong with you?"_ _

__Sam's throat tightened, stopping his breath in its tracks. _What's wrong with you?_ The implication that he was damaged in some way, that he was sick, that something inside him wasn't right and no one would ever want anything to do with him...it cut to the figurative bone. He remembered being nineteen, and having his father haul him out into the freezing cold to scream at him for being an abomination. He remembered being seven. Wondering why Dean didn't want him anymore as his brother told him they had to stop kissing where other people could see. He couldn't face this, as worked up and pain-addled as he was right now; he had to get away. He turned._ _

__"Look at me when I'm talking to you." Dean's hand landed heavily on his shoulder, gripping tightly, and Sam knew immediately that he'd forgotten about his stitches. As his fingers dug into wounds that weren't even a day old yet, Sam inhaled sharply, then let some of that air out in a low cry of pain._ _

__Dean instantly let go. Sam turned to look at him as he backed away so fast he almost tripped over his own boots._ _

__"Oh, man, I grabbed your stitches, didn't I?" he said. All his rage was gone; he just looked sick. Stricken. "I'm so sorry, Sam...I didn't pop any, did I? I'm sorry, I totally forgot. I didn't mean to hurt you - I'd never hurt you on purpose."_ _

__He was so anxious. Sam was shocked by his concern, and already filled with arousal and longing and...something else, something he didn't want to think about or admit to himself, despite how hot it was burning. And there was still so much anger there. Dean had hurt him, Dean had insulted him, Dean didn't understand anything about him._ _

__He'd meant to hit him. He really had. But, instead, he ended up leaning forward, grabbing two handfuls of his shirt, and yanking him forward into a kiss._ _

__The shoulder that Dean had just barely squeezed burned with the movement. Sam didn't care. It seemed to him that his and Dean's mouths met with the force of colliding galaxies, and it completely killed any and all inhibitions he might've had. He didn't even really notice Dean's sound of surprised, or the way he stiffened at first. His lips were incredibly full, soft under an initial layer of chapping, and warm. Sam could've stayed connected to them and their owner for hours. His hands loosened on Dean's shirt. He lifted one to cup the back of his head and pull his face closer, and left the other where it was resting flat against his chest. Keeping just a little bit of distance between them._ _

__He was kissing his brother. Sam let that realization slowly sink in as he hungrily pressed his own lips against Dean's and moved his jaw a little, a substitute for bucking his hips. This was something he'd told himself he'd never do again. He stroked the soft, short hair on the back of Dean's head, and shuddered with his sudden groan of passion. It was so completely wrong. And he should care...but, right now, Dean's mouth was opening, Sam eagerly followed his lead, and his mind was completely full of hot wetness. A strong, familiar tongue. The powerful flavor of smooth whiskey and vanilla - something like vanilla, anyway. He had no room to think about anything else._ _

__Suddenly, the movement of Dean's mouth slowed, and stopped. And then he tried to pull away. Sam reacted without thinking as his hands slid off him - he pressed himself forward and whimpered, knowing he sounded pathetic and not caring, just searching for more affection. His body was on fire and he felt like he might die if Dean didn't pull him back in and kiss him again. He wasn't even mad anymore. But he felt a hand on his forehead, and his older brother pushed him out to arm's length. He opened his eyes, hurt and a little angry._ _

__"No," Dean said, before he could speak up. His voice was firm and heavy. "I'm not gonna do this again. I won't get all close to you, just so you can yell at me for it later." He let his hand drop from Sam's forehead. "You gotta stop doing this. It ain't fair to...well...either of us."_ _

__"Dean...I..." He looked down at his boots, blinking. He knew what he wanted, right now, what he _needed_ \- what he'd needed for two years and one week. Nothing was standing in his way. His mind was completely clear, and he needed to make Dean understand that. "I'm not drunk right now." Sam looked up. "I'm not drugged."_ _

__Dean raised an eyebrow. "Okay?"_ _

__"I want this." Sam swallowed. "Please. It's entirely me right now, and I'm telling you this feels good and I want it. I want you to touch me, and kiss me. Nothing else - and I promise I won't pull away later, or yell at you." He held his hands out to him. "I've been fighting myself all day on this, ever since I woke up and wanted you to keep holding me, and..." He smiled, the expression uncertain but affectionate. "Well, I bet you can tell which part won."_ _

__Dean's mouth had dropped open a little as he talked. Now, he closed it and studied him. Probably making sure he was totally sincere and there really wouldn't be any backlash from this. Sam all but held his breath as he waited. He'd just put himself into the same position that Dean had been in that morning - vulnerable, dependent, easily hurt - and it wouldn't end well for him if Dean decided to act the way that he had._ _

__But instead of telling him that he'd screwed up too completely and he just didn't want him anymore, Dean took hold of his wrists and all but jerked him in, so their chests were touching. He murmured an immediate apology, probably thinking he'd made his stitches hurt again. He had, but he'd also gotten his heart beating like the wings of a caged harpy and everything that made him up clamoring for more. So Sam really didn't mind._ _

__"Completely sure?" Dean asked. Sam nodded._ _

___I'm an adult. I can make my own decisions...and this is a good one._ _ _

__He wasn't sure why he was telling himself that, or what he hoped to ward off by doing so. But he didn't have time to think about it for very long. This time, when Dean touched him, tugging off his unzipped jacket and putting his arms around him, he let himself shiver noticeably and enjoy it. It felt...well, it felt good. Amazingly good. To have said yes to this without anything impairing him, and know that he really wanted it. As Dean reached up and tilted his face down, so he could kiss him, he moaned with sudden, intense pleasure. It was amazing. Dean was amazing, Sam realized. The pressure of his lips and tongue, the taste of him, the feel - it woke up parts of him he hadn't even known were asleep._ _

__He'd missed this. Maybe it was bad, maybe he'd never admitted it to himself...but he had._ _

__Kissing Dean lit Sam up in a way that, somehow, kissing Jess never had. He eagerly let Dean guide his mouth open, cupping his head with his large hands as a tongue was flicked and pushed into every sensitive crevice. Dean went straight for places that he must've remembered made Sam squirm and moan. It made him wonder how often, in the last two years, Dean had pictured his body and forlornly marked every sensitive place with the stroke of a mental finger._ _

__Dean sucked on his lower lip for a couple seconds as he carefully guided him backwards, and Sam didn't even try to hold back a sound that was almost a purr. He felt his brother smile against his mouth, then the kiss went back to being more gentle. So gentle - Dean was feeling him out, keeping him comfortable, not pushing him at all. Their pelvises were locked together, and Sam could feel Dean's denim-clad erection pressing against his own. But neither one of them rubbed or rocked. Dean's hands cupped his side and rested tenderly between his shoulder blades, staying far above his waist even as he made soothing little circles with his fingertips. Sam arched his back a little, pushing himself deeper into the embrace. It'd been years since he'd been handled so gently, since Jess definitely wasn't dominant in their relationship and more or less expected him to take care of her, and he liked it. It felt like home._ _

__His calves bumped against the foot of a bed. Dean's bed. As his brother's hands went to his hips and gently pushed him down into a sitting position, he opened his eyes and anxiously looked up at him, whispering, "I don't want - "_ _

__"I won't," Dean promised. "Shh." He pressed a quick kiss to Sam's lips. It was an intimate, familiar gesture, and it felt right. "Even if you wanted it, I wouldn't - not while those scratches are still so fresh." He guided him, and Sam obediently scooted backwards, until he could lay down without his feet dangling off the bed. "I just want you on the bed so I don't accidentally poke any of 'em again. Figured it'd be more comfortable."_ _

__When he climbed onto the bed, Sam stopped him from crouching over him with a hand on his chest. "I don't want you on top of me."_ _

__Dean didn't bat an eye. Just nodded, and lay down next to him. Sam rolled over so they were facing each other, then let Dean reach for him, closing his eyes and following his lead. He wouldn't have moved at all over the next fifteen minutes, if one of them didn't have to come up for air every so often; the only other time he broke the kiss was to smile, eyes still closed, and say, "You're so _warm_." Dean chuckled and pulled him back in. Sam let him, eager for more of those soft, full lips and their distinctive flavor. He shifted a little in Dean's arms, one draped protectively over him and the other under his ribcage, but the movements were happy. This was so perfect. Sam flexed his jaw, allowing Dean's tongue deeper into his mouth. He felt safe, and loved, and _whole_. Nothing hurt. He wasn't angry or confused. Even the sting of his stitches had faded. He put a hand on Dean's side, feeling solid muscle and bone, and squeezed affectionately. Dean groaned._ _

___What the hell do you think you're doing?_ _ _

__Sam stiffened with a sudden flood of guilt and horror as his father's voice broke into his head. Again. But, this time, it wasn't a memory from when he was nineteen and John had seen them. Or from the awful couple of days afterward...as his dad made sure he knew how sick he was. This sounded like he was actually talking inside his head, and Sam half-believed that he'd see him looming over them if he opened his eyes. The reminder of just how wrong this, right here, was - it was almost enough to make him rip himself away. And he was sure that Dean had noticed his reaction to it and assumed that he was afraid or uncomfortable, because he'd closed his mouth and was kissing him softly, the hand that'd been thrown over him reassuringly stroking his hair. Sam hesitated. But then he remembered that morning. Waking up happy, because Dean had held him all night, like he'd wanted - and then pulling away because he'd remembered his father's anger and it'd (he'd tried to convince himself) set him straight. He remembered how hurt and lost Dean had looked. So he stayed where he was._ _

___Shouldn't you know better by now? This is incest, Sam. This is illegal. Do you understand how wrong what you're doing is? How disgusting?_ _ _

__Sam mentally turned his back on his dad's phantom presence, doing his absolute best to ignore all the painful emotions coursing through him. He panted against Dean's lips, holding back a whimper of frustration and, unfortunately, disgust that he couldn't quite stomp down, and trembled a little with the effort of staying put._ _

___What would your mother say, if she saw you with your mouth all over your big brother? Hell, Sam, what would your girlfriend think? You're cheating on her with a man that you were raised beside, who you're related to. Can you get that through your thick head?_ _ _

__Sam reached up and cupped the back of Dean's head with one hand, maneuvering his other up in order to get it between the bedspread and his face, holding the side of his head. He pulled him closer, kissing fiercely and pressing their mouths together as hard as he could. Dean twitched a little against him, and made a sound that was half-pleasure and half-surprise. He held him a little tighter, understanding that he needed to be closer, and Sam was grateful for that. Despite the mounting self-loathing and shame and discomfort that he just couldn't seem to shake, no matter how much he shifted to make himself more comfortable, or how deeply he threw himself into the kiss._ _

___Get off him._ _ _

__He couldn't do it anymore. That was the breaking point. Sam pulled his mouth off Dean's, gasping for breath and fighting back tears. He let go of his brother, twisting out of the warm circle of his arms and scrabbling a few inches away before rolling over. With his back to him, he curled up in the next best thing to a fetal position. Inside, he shook, disgusted and terrified and wounded. He knew what he wanted. He could finally admit it to Dean and to himself._ _

__He just couldn't have it._ _

___Don't you let him touch you like that ever again._ _ _

__"Sammy?" Dean's voice was quiet, disappointed but also concerned. Sam felt his hand between his shoulder blades, very carefully positioned where he didn't have any injuries. He desperately wanted to lean back into the contact, that point of warmth...but he couldn't quite do it. "Did I...what'd I do wrong?"_ _

__For just a second, Sam wanted to blame him for this. It would be so easy. Dean was older, and he'd been having some form of sex with him for as long as he could remember, and he could believe he'd coerced him. Damaged him when he was little, forced him into something wrong and non-consensual - just like he had managed to convince himself for the last two years. But he immediately rejected that idea, because he just couldn't go back to that. Not after Dean had done what he wanted him to, been so gentle with him, and treated him with respect he probably didn't deserve._ _

__"I'm sorry," Dean said softly, and Sam could tell he was. He didn't even know if he'd done anything wrong, but he was completely willing to apologize. Sam realized that he just didn't want him to leave again._ _

__And that prompted a veritable explosion in his heart. He could identify that mystery emotion. A mixture of childish affection, and adoration, and...love. Yeah, love, the real thing, strong and bright in his chest. Even purer than what he felt for Jess. Burning like an ember for his big brother, his protector, the one person he'd always been able to count on. For everything. Safety and stability and a romantic relationship that worked perfectly._ _

__He didn't leave. He stayed in that same position for a long time, eyes closed and hands drawn up by his face, as he calmed himself down. Dean's hand stayed on his back and moved every so often, in slight, soft circles that felt better than they probably should've. That sensation was what Sam focused on, what he anchored himself to. It was what slowly brought him back._ _

__Once he felt like he could look at Dean without wanting to bolt, or remembering why he'd left him in the first place, or having whatever the hell had just happened happen again, Sam rolled back over onto his other side. Dean's hand slipped off him and drew back, and they studied each other. Sam found himself amazed by how many different shades of green he had in his eyes. And how expressive said eyes could be. Dean was wary, he could tell, and he didn't blame him. Hoping to put him at some sort of ease, he cleared his throat and spoke._ _

__"Okay, that was a little too fast," he admitted. Dean smiled a little._ _

__"Yeah, I figured as much, when you flipped out on me," he said. "Sorry. I knew you were still...uncomfortable, and I let it go too far. Shouldn'ta done that."_ _

__"No, I don't think..." Sam trailed off. "It wasn't anything you did. I just got...overwhelmed."_ _

__"Still. I'm sorry." They lapsed into silence for a few minutes, just watching each other breathe and blink. Sam was mesmerized by the simple rhythms of Dean's body, and vice-versa, going by the look on his face. But Dean talked again after awhile. "Uh, so. We kissed." He swallowed. " _Really_ kissed...that's pretty big. I...Sam, what're you gonna do about this? Like, are you gonna stay, or do you want to..." He seemed to be having trouble getting the words out. "Would you rather I just, y'know, took you back to Stanford?"_ _

__Sam shook his head, as best he could while lying down. "I don't want that."_ _

__"Oh. Okay." Dean visibly relaxed, but only a little. "Then..." He sighed heavily. "I guess this is the part where you give me a speech about how it was the heat of the moment or something, so it didn't mean anything, and I need to act like you never grabbed me and kissed me...and neither of us felt a thing."_ _

__His words made Sam wince a little. "No. I'm not gonna do that, this time." Dean's hand was resting on the bedspread between them. He hesitantly reached for it, and felt encouraged when he didn't jerk or pull away. "It happened, I started it, we both liked it. And those are all good things." He paused. "You... _did_ like it, right?"_ _

__"Don't worry, Sammy, you haven't lost your touch," Dean said with a grin that showed some of the excitement he must finally be letting himself feel. "I liked it a whole lot. Until, y'know, you turned into a virgin fourteen-year-old or whatever it was that happened back there." Sam smirked, and didn't bother to point out that he hadn't been a virgin at fourteen. He was pretty sure Dean remembered. "I gotta ask, though." Their hands had been touching, and now he twined his fingers through Sam's, never breaking eye contact. "What was different about this? Why aren't you freaking out about me touching you, like you did this morning?"_ _

__"I realized some stuff. While we were fighting, and while we were kissing."_ _

__"Okay...like?"_ _

__"I feel...so much for you. All of it's good...warm. And I love it." He said it softly, and Dean started. After the way he'd treated him over the last week or so, he really couldn't blame him for being shocked. "So much, and not all of it's for you strictly as a brother...even though, believe me, I know how screwed up that is. I think I've felt like this since I was old enough to, and I'm pretty sure I never stopped." He squeezed his hand, and smiled at him. "I missed you."_ _

__"I really missed you, too, Sammy." Dean's voice was rough, and Sam wasn't sure if it was from arousal or emotion. Probably the latter. "And I...well, I feel the same way about you, too." He closed his eyes briefly. "God, you have no idea what it means to hear you say even that." After squeezing Sam's hand back, he opened his eyes again and asked, "So...what is this? What does this mean? For me and you, obviously."_ _

__Sam hesitated, sorting out his thoughts before speaking. He really didn't want to screw this up. "Well...I need to think about everything. I mean, I _really_ need to think about everything, for a long time. So we're not really back together. If that's what you were asking."_ _

__Dean sighed through his nose, closing his eyes again._ _

__"Dean, I have a girlfriend," Sam gently explained. "I can't just break up with her, and I'm not even sure I want to, yet. I feel pretty strongly for her, too, and I don't want to leave her. Not right now. I can't...what would I even tell her? I just...again, I need to think about everything. You, and her. I need to make a lot of decisions, and I have a feeling I'm going to hate making most of them. And someone's going to be unhappy no matter what I do."_ _

__"Okay," he said, voice so gravelly Sam could barely make the word out. He held his hand tighter._ _

__"Listen," he started. "Even if I...say, decide to stay with Jess, permanently - I'm not saying that's a definite thing, but it's an option - I want you around. I want you close to me, so I can have a relationship with you. Not a sexual one, obviously, but, like you said, it's never been just about the sex. It's 'cause I need you. Dean, I really, really need you, and I can't leave you again. Or have you leave me." He scooted a little closer, even though it made his stitches hurt. "And I might...go for the other option, here. Either way, I'm never going back to how things have been recently."_ _

__"All right, that's...pretty different from what I was expecting," Dean said, nodding a little. "I can...yeah, I can live with that. But, from here on out 'til we find Dad - how're things gonna be?"_ _

__"Separate beds," Sam said firmly. "Unless something major happens and one of us...needs the other."_ _

__"Like last night."_ _

__"Yeah, like last night," he agreed. "Still no touching me when I'm naked, but it's okay other times. As long as you stay above my waist and it doesn't get creepy." He paused. "Actually, just forget about that rule until these scratches heal, because I'm gonna need your help with them. This morning sucked."_ _

__"You don't say," Dean said dryly. Sam chose to ignore him._ _

__"No hand-holding in public, no, uh...cuddling. In public. I guess...I guess it's okay when we're alone. When we're tired and we don't have any work to do. And hugging's okay, just keep it to a minimum."_ _

__"And what about nicknames, your highness?" Dean asked, sarcastic but amused. And happy. "Is it okay to call you Sammy?" Sam rested his forehead gently against his._ _

__"Yeah," he told him with a smile, "you can. As much as you want. But...no other nicknames. Please."_ _

__"Got it." He felt him nodding. "Anything else?"_ _

__"No kissing."_ _

__"Aw, c'mon - "_ _

__"No...kissing," Sam repeated, more firmly this time. "It felt really good, you're amazing, but...my girlfriend."_ _

__"Yeah, okay, I get it, but you really haven't left me anything at all," Dean complained. He nuzzled against Sam's forehead, rubbing his thumb across the side of his hand as if to ask, _Is this okay? Can I do this?_ "You're my little Sammy. You've gotta let me have something."_ _

__"No kissing _on the mouth_ ," Sam amended. "And no saying or acting like you own me, okay?"_ _

__"Fine. That works." He raised his head, and kissed Sam's forehead. "That _definitely_ works." He could hear the raw, delirious excitement in his voice, and guessed that he was grinning from ear to ear. Sam couldn't help but smile, too, as Dean let go of his hand and stroked his hair. "Y'know, we should really research that dog-thing. Find out what it is and how to kill it."_ _

__"Yeah. We should."_ _

__"And we should close the door."_ _

__"Mm-hm."_ _

__"And get you something stronger than aspirin, 'cause I saw the way you've been twitching all day..."_ _

__"Okay."_ _

__But neither of them moved for a long time._ _


	13. Chapter Thirteen

Dean opened his eyes as Sam shuffled past his bed.

He was a light sleeper - a trait that'd been pounded into him during his early childhood and which had the tendency to save his life every once in awhile. Even though it'd meant that he had permanent bags under his eyes by the time he hit high school. He also kept a steel knife and a handgun loaded with salt and silver under his pillow. Being woken up by movement within the room would normally prompt him into whipping both out and sitting bolt upright to aim, but he could've recognized the cadence of his brother's bare footsteps even if he'd been drugged into unconsciousness. Quick and short and basically a cute little pitter-patter before he hit his growth spurt, awkward and loping as he tried to get used to his brand-new six-foot-four frame, long and soft and graceful once he was finally comfortable in his own skin. Over the past week, with Sam finally relaxed enough around him to get out of bed during the night instead of hiding his body under the covers, Dean had been identifying and getting used to his current gait. Two years of living as a civilian had changed him, but not much. You couldn't just get rid of a lifetime of paramilitary training. He wasn't nearly as loud as he'd noticed him being when he'd first picked him up in California, but his steps were still a little heavy, especially when he was tired. Like now.

Dean had been sprawled on his back, most of the covers thrown off him and tangled, in all their hot, itchy glory, around his lower legs. He moved his forearm from where it'd been tossed carelessly over his eyes, clearing his throat as he sat up and blinked in the yellow light of their room's one bulb. Sam was powering up his laptop at their small table, not even sitting down yet as he pressed his index finger relentlessly to the button. He was in boxers and a T-shirt he'd designated specifically for sleeping in (unlike Dean, who just went to bed in some of yesterday's clothes), his dark, shaggy hair was sticking out around his head in a complete mess, and his hazel eyes were glassy with exhaustion. Dean bit back a sigh. Throwing yourself totally into a hunt took a physical toll on a guy, which was something he accepted, but he hated seeing Sam like this. The over-protectiveness that he'd lived his life by since he was four was in full swing.

"Dude, you _do_ know it's, like…" He paused, looking at the cheap alarm clock on the table between their beds to get the time, and couldn't hold back a wince. "…four in the morning, right? And you didn't go to bed until about midnight? You can sleep in a little later, if you want."

"You would've been up soon, anyway," Sam said absentmindedly, his eyes flicking tiredly over his start-up screen as Dean swung his legs out of bed and padded over to him. "The library doesn't open for, um…what time is it again?...about four hours, and I just wanted to make myself useful before I head down there."

He'd spent almost every day of the past week (since what Dean ecstatically thought of as "the turning point") at the public library, looking through thick, dusty mythology books to try and figure out just what they were hunting. When the library was closed, he turned to the internet. He was relentless – and he hadn't had any luck at all, so far. That worried Dean a little, since Sam was so unbelievably good at research, and he helped him when he could, to try and take some of the weight off of him. But, mostly, all he could do was keep him caffeinated, fed, and watered, and provide him with human company. He'd tried, multiple times, to grab some books himself and pore over them, but that always seemed to make Sam jittery.

"I think you'd be more 'useful' if you got more than four hours of sleep," Dean told him kindly, placing a hand on his shoulder. Sam was deliciously warm from being under the covers of his own bed. "C'mon, Sammy – " There was definitely a kind of thrill to calling him that. " – you look terrible. When I see you outta the corner of my eye, I'm honestly starting to mistake you for that revenant Dad and us ganked in West Virginia." He smiled, letting him know he was joking. Dean was than capable of running on three or four hours of sleep and feeling great. Sam, on the other hand, just wasn't quite wired that way.

"I just need some coffee," Sam muttered, pulling the nearest chair out and lowering himself into it. Dean let go of him, but kept his movements gentle, remembering that the claw marks on his shoulders were still sore and full of stitches. "I found some good sites last night; might finally have a breakthrough."

"Well…that's sorta encouraging, I guess." Dean pulled out a chair of his own and sat next to his brother, studying him as he bent over his laptop. He couldn't remember the last time Sam had been so…dedicated to a hunt (though maybe "obsessed with" would be a more accurate description). Usually, he was okay with doing what he could, finishing the case in its own time, and looking forward to the downtime they always got between jobs.

Dean knew why this slightly-freaky change had happened, of course. For the first few days after Sam had started completely immersing himself in research – right after they'd found out that their target was at least part dog or wolf – Dean'd thought that his two years at Stanford had changed him. Just made him more focused or more dedicated to the family business or something. But, while Dean changed his bandages one morning (and stole way more soft, loving touches than he probably should have), he'd admitted that he just wanted to kill this thing and get out of here. He wanted to keep looking for Dad, and find him, and just get the whole mess over with. Maybe so he could go back to school. Maybe so he could do something else.

(And the rising body count definitely hadn't helped things. There had been three more victims in this last week alone, with their guts eaten out and their bodies torn apart.)

Dabbing antiseptic cream on Sam's stitched-together gashes, Dean hadn't been able to keep his face from settling into a carefully-neutral expression at the mention of Dad. He understood his need to find him. He was family, after all, and worry for him was picking away at Dean's mind, too. He just wasn't looking forward to what might (and probably would) happen when they found him. Him and Sam. Working together.

Sam wasn't exactly president of their father's fan club, Dean knew, but he thought that at least he didn't have any idea just how much he hated him. _Them_ , actually, for what he'd seen and what he knew…yeah, Dean had mixed feelings about finding Dad. Most of them having to do with the urge to protect his Sammy from John Winchester's wrath. But Sam was working hard, highly determined to end this hunt, and he had to support him.

"Dammit." Sam flopped back in his chair now, massaging his tightly-closed eyes and grimacing. Broken out of his thoughts, Dean gave him his full attention. "The wifi's down again."

"That doesn't surprise me," Dean remarked. He privately thought that they were pretty lucky this motel even had running water. "Okay, you obviously can't do anything right now." He reached over and flipped the screen of Sam's laptop down. Pretty gently, because he remembered being bitched at two years ago about how delicate technology could be. "Go back to bed. Seriously, you need it. I can tell."

"I can't," Sam said, exhaling explosively. He sounded defeated and frustrated. "I guess I'll just...do something else..." He started to rise, but Dean stopped him, by laying a hand over his. It was automatic and he'd been doing stuff just like it all week, but there was still an undeniable buzz of pleasure and excitement that came from finally being able to touch his little brother. Sam stiffened just a little, at first, and Dean didn't mind. He was doing better than he had been, at least. In the beginning, he'd reacted to Dean's out-of-the-blue attempts to lay hands on him by flinching violently, then apologizing profusely.

And now he was relaxing, just as quickly as he'd stiffened. His hand moved slightly under Dean's, just a tiny little gesture that really could've meant anything at all, but he wanted to think it conveyed gratitude. Sam had asked for closeness, and given him permission to touch, and those were both things he could definitely do. Some part of his brother obviously wanted this, and was fighting hard for it. Dean loved that.

Granted, he didn't exactly understand just what he was fighting. Memories of his girlfriend? His own morals? It probably didn't matter.

"At least lay down," Dean suggested. "Here." He stood, maintaining a very loose grip on Sam's hand and lifting it with a slight tug in the direction of their beds. "If you're really that stressed out about not knowing what this thing is...I'll keep you company. Okay?" He smiled, and gave his hand a light squeeze, trying to make it clear that he was only offering comfort and closeness. Nothing - God forbid - sexual.

His heart fluttered a little (he was really turning into a girl about this, wasn't he?) as Sam gave him a tiny, quick smile in return. It was tired, but it was still affectionate.

"No," he replied, glancing away and pulling his hand out of Dean's. The movement was casual - not a rejection. "Uh...not right now. Maybe later."

That wasn't really a promise, but Dean could definitely accept it, because, well, snuggling with Sam was snuggling with Sam. Though he'd never actually call it that.

"Then I," Dean announced, heading for the disorganized pile on the floor that he'd left his jeans, jacket, and boots in last night, "will go get breakfast - _real_ breakfast, not girly coffee and a PowerBar - and you can shower. We'll change your bandages when I get back."

Sam looked over at him, a bemused expression on his face, as he pulled on clothes. Texas was warm, even on a fall morning, but no way was he walking to the gas station down the street or the nearest fast-food restaurant or whatever barefoot and in his underwear. Dean looked right back, straightening up after yanking his jeans up around his hips. Maybe he was only having trouble understanding what was going on because he hadn't slept right in days and his brain was fried, but Dean was sure he could pick weary, slightly-confused happiness out of his expression.

"Why're you so completely focused on taking care of me?" he asked, the corners of his mouth twitching with a slight smile. Dean walked over and rustled his hair without a second thought. When Sam gently pushed back into the contact, obviously enjoying it, he felt a rush of ecstatic warmth. Things were going so much better. This was how it was supposed to be.

"You're mine to take care of," he replied, stepping back and rolling his shoulders to get his jacket to fall right on him. Sam glanced back at him, eyebrows drawn together. His happy demeanor faded just a tiny bit, like a cloud slipping partially over the disk of the sun.

"Dean," he said, a warning note in his voice. Dean sighed.

"Sorry," he amended. No acting like he owned him. That was one of the rules that Sam had laid down for him a week ago, and he was willing to follow it, because it meant he got to touch and hold and kiss. To a certain extent. But this was definitely the hardest of Sam's guidelines for him to stick to, simply because he'd been _his_ for as long as he could remember. His baby brother, when Dad brought Mom home from the hospital and she placed that squirming bundle of blue blankets and dark hair in his arms. His lover, as he planted kisses in a burning trail down the soft skin of his chest and stomach to the base of his cock. His Sammy. For a million different reasons he couldn't sort out even inside his own head.

Breakfast was easy enough. He only had to walk a couple blocks to reach a good-looking diner, one that was open at this ungodly hour and willing to put what he ordered in takeout boxes. Bacon for himself, and eggs, and hash browns, with black coffee in an insulated cup. For Sam, he got whole-wheat pancakes and some drink with an Italian-sounding name he could barely pronounce. There might've been some coffee in there, somewhere, under all the foam and cream and caramel drizzle, and Dean couldn't help but think that it completely cancelled out whatever health factor the pancakes had. Sam would've complained, though, if he'd come back and given him something greasy.

He had no idea where his brother's obsession with healthy eating had come from, since he'd been perfectly willing to eat anything he could get his hands on two years ago, whether it was a steak or a cheeseburger or a candy bar Dean had dug out of his backpack and shoved at him so he'd stop whining about being hungry during a hunt. But Sam had kissed him a week ago and told him he still felt something for him, and, yesterday, he'd leaned back against him for a second when Dean momentarily wrapped his arms around him from behind. He would've bought him a five-course vegetarian meal if he thought it'd make him happy.

Sam was already out of the shower when Dean got back and laid breakfast out on their table. Standing in the door to the bathroom, hair still dripping and lower body covered by a clean pair of jeans, he was gently patting his stitches dry. He winced every time he pressed a little too hard, or one of his movements pulled on the tender skin of his wounds. Dean sighed, watching him. Sam had given him a nod and a refreshed smile when he came in, but now he gave him his full attention.

"Okay, c'mon, let me," he said, stepping forward and shooing him into the bathroom. Gauze pads, medical tape, and antiseptic cream were already laid out on the cheap beige laminate of the counter, lined up neatly and ready to use. Even exhausted from sleep deprivation and burned out on fruitless research, it was obvious that Sam was still hopelessly anal ( _Pun not intended,_ Dean told himself, though part of him still got all warm and fuzzy with amusement and some really good memories). He'd always found it cute, a reassuring staple of his brother's personality, even though it could get a little irritating. Like when he opened his duffel bag, found his knives organized according to size, and realized that an eleven-year-old Sam had been going through his weapons.

He saw the dark hair on Sam's arms, and the wispy, completely colorless stuff between his shoulder blades, rise in goosebumps as he patted the droplets of water off of every injury, but he pretended not to notice. Hey, maybe he was just cold, and it wasn't a reaction to Dean touching him so intimately through thin terrycloth. He also raised the towel and scrubbed Sam's shaggy hair into an acceptable level of dryness, prompting an indignant, "Hey!"

"You were dripping all over the place," Dean said reasonably, tossing the towel onto the counter and grabbing the tube of antiseptic cream. They'd need more soon - the stiff plastic was flat and curled in on itself in emptiness. "You can't walk around with wet hair. We've got more than enough on our plates without you picking up a case of the sniffles."

"Dean, that's an old wives' tale. You can't get sick just from being cold," Sam pointed out, sounding a little exasperated. Dean squeezed a smear of cream onto the tips of two fingers.

"Uh-huh...mind sitting down? I can barely reach your shoulders," he complained. That wasn't quite true, but Sam was definitely taller than him. He remembered how dismayed he'd been when he realized that his younger brother actually had an inch of height on him. Then two, then three, before his growth spurt finally tapered off.

Once Sam had lowered himself onto the closed lid of the toilet with a slight huff of good-natured annoyance, Dean started tending to the wounds on his back. Vertical claw marks dragged down over his shoulder blades and ribcage, neat black stitches holding their puffy sides together, and the skin between them was pink and tender.

They were healing. They were obviously still sore - a dog-thing had dropped onto him from above and clawed him as deeply as it could, of course they were still gonna be sore. But they had closed, and they weren't oozing blood onto the gauze pads that cushioned them anymore, and there wasn't any sign of infection among the sensitive ridges of brand-new scar tissue. In fact, Sam probably didn't need to wear bandages at all at this point, which Dean had silently admitted to himself several days ago. He was a fast healer, and he was tough. But neither of them had brought up stopping these bandage-changing sessions. Dean couldn't bear to suggest it, and possibly lose Sam's supple skin under his fingertips and his warm scent and the fringes of his hair curling against his neck...and maybe Sam just liked being taken care of. Or being touched by him. Either possibility made him happy.

If things had been exactly the same between them as they used to be, Dean would've been kissing every inch of tan skin as he worked, and Sam would've been pushing himself into every touch. Wound-dressing was pretty intimate, just so long as there were no nasty fluids to contend with, and they'd wound up in bed together plenty of times after one had finished bandaging the other. But since everything stood as it did, Dean kept his mouth (not to mention certain other parts of his body) to himself, and Sam just relaxed under his hands. He could still feel tense knots in his muscles, though, under the skin of his shoulders and neck.

"Hey, maybe today you should just stay in the room," Dean suggested quietly, taping pads and strips of gauze over the healing gashes on Sam's back. He figured he'd rubbed enough antiseptic cream onto them. "Only use the internet for this research, take it easy, maybe nap this afternoon." He knew that that would probably slow down the investigation. He hated himself for it, and felt like all the people this monster had killed were staring at him with dead, accusing eyes as he suggested it. But it wouldn't do any of them any good at all if Sam had a nervous breakdown.

"Nap? Seriously?" Sam twisted his neck to look up at him, as Dean squeezed more cream onto his fingers and started in on the mess of thread and puffy pink flesh that was his shoulders. His hazel eyes, skeptical, shone a pale brown in the cheap light of the bathroom, and Dean's heart suddenly gave such a powerful beat that it left him feeling lightheaded. "I can't nap. We need to know what this thing is, sooner rather than later."

"Well, you're about as useful as a sack of hammers while you're running on empty," he pointed out. Both hands on Sam's broad shoulders, he paused to consider. "And while a sack of hammers could actually be pretty useful at times, this isn't one of 'em."

Sam sighed. "We need to kill this thing as soon as we can, or more people are going to die."

"I know." Dean fell silent for a few seconds, after saying it "The body count's just about in the double digits, everyone's freaking out around here, and we're...well, we're still going nowhere. But you killing yourself to figure out what we're hunting isn't gonna help anyone."

"You need to stop worrying about me," Sam stated. "I'm a hunter." He said it without any pride at all - only resignation, and what Dean thought was a tiny bit of shame. "This is what I do." He sighed, deeply. "What _we_ do. And just because you and I have got...whatever this is going on between us, it doesn't mean that you can put me above the job."

Dean blinked. He wasn't putting Sam above the job. At least, he didn't think he was. He was a hunter, after all, just like Sam had barely declared himself to be, dead-focused and with a black-and-white set of morals. Even when he didn't want it to, the safety of other, more clueless human beings and the destruction of evil came before anything personal. Maybe he wanted to turn his attention completely to Sam, bolster their relationship more and more...but he couldn't. Not while people were dying.

"I'm not," he said quietly, finishing up with Sam's shoulders and moving on to his chest. "I hate that we don't know and can't do anything at all, just as much as you do. I want this over with, I want everyone safe. But it's just not necessary for you to drive yourself crazy by hitting the books eighteen hours a day." Wanting to lighten the mood, he smirked a little. "'Sides. You'll give yourself premature wrinkles and ruin that beautiful face."

Sam sighed forcefully, and Dean knew he'd put a toe or two over the line with that playful comment. But he didn't mutter an apology and brush off the awkwardness quite yet. His attention was taken up with the bite that splashed over the top half of one of Sam's sharply-defined pectorals, cleanly stitched and apparently healing just as well as the scratches. He could move his arms and sleep on his stomach just fine now, and there wasn't anything really weird, including infection, about the wound. But...dammit, it was a bite. There were too many grossly-inhuman things that made more of themselves by biting humans, and this particular injury made Dean's stomach drop into his boots every time he saw it, at the thought of his Sammy sprouting fangs and dog feet. With a sigh of his own, he reluctantly started dabbing cream onto the fang-marks with one hand. His other rested, completely non-sexually, on his brother's denim-clad thigh.

"Dean. Hey." Sam's voice wasn't frustrated or urgent anymore, just gentle. He raised one hand up from where it'd been gripping the lid of the toilet, hesitated, then slowly laid it over Dean's hand. The movement took him a lot to make, he could tell, and he thrilled with the touch. "If the bite was gonna turn me into something crazy, don't you think it would have happened by now?"

"Yeah, you're probably right." Dean finished with the cream and pressed a few gauze pads to the area. "I just kinda wish we knew what it was so we could be absolutely sure, y'know?" He flashed Sam a quick smile as he peeled off a strip of medical tape. "And so we can kill it, obviously."

"That's why I can't take a nap," Sam said, so immediately it almost had the feel of a reflex. Dean rolled his eyes.

"Yeah, okay, whatever, Samara," he said, emphasizing the "Sam" part of the name as he pressed the edges of the tape down, then stood. He patted his brother on one gauze-swaddled shoulder. "You can avoid actual, restful sleep for just as long as you want, but you're at least eating breakfast before you open your computer again."

"Fine," Sam consented, rubbing one eye with the heel of his hand as Dean led him out of the bathroom. Hopefully, their food would still be warm. Being well-versed in the properties of foam takeout boxes, though, he was almost sure that it would.

Once Sam had eaten, drunk, and irrevocably installed himself at his computer, Dean resisted the urge to just walk up behind him and mindlessly play with his hair. Maybe plant a kiss or two on his scalp. He probably wouldn't welcome that while he was busy. So he just sat beside him, intending on helping...but Sam wouldn't allow it. After complaining that they couldn't do much together on, seriously, just one computer, Dean, he shooed him away. He said that he couldn't concentrate with him sitting right there, and besides, he wasn't doing much good.

"I could go to the library and check out some books," Dean offered. "Or, y'know, steal 'em...since we don't exactly have a card."

"It doesn't open until nine," Sam pointed out, rapidly typing something out on his keyboard. "And we are _not_ stealing books from a _public_ library. What the hell is wrong with you?"

So Dean left him to it, dropping onto his bed and turning on the TV.

"That's really annoying," Sam said within seconds in an apologetic voice, not bothering to look up from the screen of his laptop. Dean hit the "mute" button without a word.

Things stayed quiet and uneventful for a few hours. Dean occasionally asked Sam how he was doing ("Fine," he muttered distractedly. "Found a new site - wait, no. Never mind."), or brought him a bottle of water, or brushed a reassuring hand against him. Other than that, though, there wasn't a whole lot he could do to help without risking getting snapped at again. Maybe he could've gone to the front desk and complained about the wifi, but it seemed to be working again. Go figure.

Around eight o'clock, Dean was leaning back against the pillows of his bed, having just showered (because, before, it'd been just too damn early to shower when he wasn't even going anywhere). The TV was still on mute, and he had no real idea what he was watching, but Sam looked pretty focused and, if he couldn't help him, he at least didn't want to bother him. Suddenly, though, Sam sighed frustratedly, drawing Dean's attention to him. He leaned back in his flimsy chair, rubbing at his closed eyes and grimacing.

"I'm just not...getting anywhere," he admitted with a gusty exhale, sounding completely defeated. "Nothing _fits_ for this thing."

Dean sat up and swung his legs over the side of the bed, reaching for his duffel bag. "Wanna take another look at Dad's journal?"

"Guess it couldn't hurt." Sam sighed again, holding one large hand out for the leather-bound book. Dean knew he'd flipped through it a day or two ago (so had he) and hadn't found any monster that matched what little they knew about their target, but he guessed he was willing to try it again out of simple desperation. He'd been a little unnerved at first, as Sam scanned the pages, but Dad didn't seem to have written much about his personal life. Just hunts, monsters, spells, and weapons - no mention of what he'd noticed his adolescent sons doing with each other.

Dean stood and walked over to him, handing him the book instead of tossing it. The way Sam's fingers lingered against his own sent yet another rush of warmth through him. He watched as he flipped Dad's journal open, slowly paging through it as he pulled his laptop closer and clicked through a couple tabs. His shoulders were hunched under the T-shirt he'd pulled on after they'd finished with his bandages, even though the position had to tug on his stitches and irritate his wounds. Dean moved behind him, noting how his hair was mussed from him running his fingers through it. When he leaned a little closer, he winced, picking up on small, low sounds of frustration that Sam was making deep in his throat. They were almost certainly unconscious.

"Sammy, maybe it'd help if you took a break for awhile," Dean said quietly. "I mean, we could go to a bar or something. Or you could just, I don't know, go on a walk."

"'M fine," he murmured, momentarily dropping his head into his hand so he could pinch the bridge of his nose.

Acting on an impulse, Dean laid a gentle hand on the back of his neck, feeling his heat and the muscles that were knotted painfully under his skin. He knew, from experience, that Sam could get pretty tense. When he was scared, when he was working on something from school and it wasn't coming easily, when Dad was pissed at him for screwing up on a hunt or during training. Dean remembered sitting behind Sam on their bed when he was still bigger than him, gripping his shoulders and steadily loosening the knots in and around them with slow circles of his thumbs. He'd always get snapped at at first, but Sam would melt halfway through, and then there was always kissing afterwards. Or sex, once they started doing that. But, of course, Dean never let Sam rub his shoulders and return the favor. Sam was his to take care of, not vice-versa.

He didn't want sex right now, just to get him so that he wasn't nearly so wound up. And he couldn't work on his shoulders, with everything in that area criss-crossed with claw marks, but maybe...Dean put his other hand on Sam's neck, too, and started to rub.

Sam stilled completely under him, as he dug his fingertips in and rubbed at one solid knot at a time. Dean leaned over him, focusing, so he wouldn't press too hard and hurt him. He obviously couldn't see his face, but he could see every wave and messy curl of his hair, and the iridescent sheen that the sunlight coming through the window gave it. He felt some of his brother's tension release under his callused fingers, and then Sam spoke.

"Dean." His voice was soft.

"Want me to stop?" Dean asked, raising an eyebrow. He knew Sam couldn't see it, but the gesture was automatic.

"No." Sam sighed deeply, his shoulders relaxing just a little. "Feels good."

"Yeah, I bet it does. It's like you're about ready to snap in half," Dean commented. He moved one of his thumbs in a circle, and felt something firm and hot fade away under it.

Sam let himself go, bit by bit, as Dean rubbed and massaged the muscles of his neck into something resembling looseness. He was still researching, obviously: every so often, he'd reach forward and tap the trackpad of his laptop. But Dean was willing to let that go. Sam was so unbelievably _warm_ against his hands, his flesh becoming steadily more pliable, and his scent and bask in the present, for once, instead of memory. Especially when Sam moaned through closed lips - a happy, content sound. Dean lowered his head a little, feeling both his breathing and his heart rate speed up. The contact, the intimacy, and the fierce, all-encompassing love he'd felt for Sam since he was four years old were all starting to combine to have a familiar effect on him. He worked at one particularly stubborn area of tight muscles, near the base of his brother's neck, with the heel of his hand. A few of Sam's more unruly hairs brushed his nose, and Dean let out a long, slow breath.

What would Sam do if he just...kissed him? Right now? On the top of the head or the nape of his neck? It was possible that he would completely freak out, like he used to when Dean so much as got within a foot of him, but he didn't really have a right to. He'd said that Dean could kiss him while they were alone, just not on the lips. So maybe he'd like it, and make more of those happy sounds. Maybe he'd even let Dean coax and guide him into something like what they'd used to do years ago, after a massage, and they'd end up holding each other on the bed and kissing passionately just like they had last wee -

"It's an adlet," Sam announced suddenly (and loudly), sitting bolt upright and dislodging Dean's hands from his neck.

"Whoa - what? What is?" Dean asked, startled and a little disoriented. He blinked, wrestling with a flood of disappointment and maybe just a little hint of bitterness. Had...Sam somehow figured out what he was about to do and disrupted it? Even though he'd told him it'd be okay to do it? Nah, that was crazy, Sam was doing so much better. It was just a coincidence. Breathing deeply and shoving that thought down as deeply as he could, he stuffed his hands into the pockets of his jeans and tried to focus on the screen of Sam's computer. "What the hell's an adlet?"

"Our mystery creature is an adlet." Sam sounded excited, and a little proud of himself. It was a dynamic shift from how he'd been for the past few days, and Dean further rejected the possibility that he'd interrupted on purpose. It felt too good to finally see him happy and relaxed. "Inuit monster - a dog-human hybrid that doesn't really like people. Except for food. Obviously." He tipped his head back, looking up at Dean. "It's just hunting for stuff to eat. That's why there's no connection between the victims."

"So, it's just, like...a dumb animal?" Dean asked. The prospect was gratifying, since hunts involving smart monsters were always a pain in the ass.

"Looks like it." Sam scrolled down. "I'd bet you anything it's denned up in Rachel's garden, and we got too close to it, which is why it attacked m - "

"How d'they reproduce?" Dean interrupted. Sam looked at him again.

"The same way we do," he replied. "They...uh...have puppies. I'm not going to turn into one."

Dean struggled through the sudden, massive wave of relief that pounded through him. He wasn't going to lose his brother right after he'd just barely gotten him back. He wasn't gonna have to weigh the morality of putting him out of his misery against that of letting him live as a monster. The only possible danger from the bite wound on his chest was infection. "Okay. Great. Good news, for once...second most important question." He paused, gathering his thoughts. "How do we drop Lassie?"

"Nothing special. They're basically like a person, except for the whole half-dog thing," Sam said. "Hit a vital organ with a bullet or a knife, and that'll probably be enough." He leaned back in his chair, folding his arms across his chest. "It's probably nocturnal, since most of the victims were found at night or in the morning. They were alone in the dark, and that's how it hunts...just like, well, any monster." He shrugged. "We can go back to Rachel's garden tonight and, hopefully, take it out."

"Okay..." Dean nodded. He put a hand on Sam's shoulder. "We got about twelve hours, then. You know what it is, you know how to kill it, you know where to find it." He squeezed, but not hard enough to aggravate his wounds. "You're done."

"...yeah, I guess I am." Sam frowned slightly, then looked up at him. "So, I suppose..." He hesitated, and Dean was sure he saw something flicker through his hazel eyes and darken them for a second. Like he was fighting something, pushing it down. Then he blinked, it was gone, and he smiled. "We can do that nap thing now."

Dean grinned. "Sure thing, Sammy. Whatever you want."


	14. Chapter Fourteen

When Sam had laid down on his bed after finishing with his research, hoping to catch up on at least some of the sleep that he'd lost over this case, he'd decided he didn't want to be held while he slept. He didn't really need it right now (he was just tired, not freaked out or hurt), and he wasn't going to betray his distant girlfriend by curling up in his brother/lover's arms without a really good reason. He felt terrible enough about what they had already done. Were doing. Jess's face flashed into his mind on an hourly basis. But he wasn't going to order Dean out of the room or anything. He'd allow him to sit or lay or whatever on the other side of the bed but nothing else, and he told him that, eyes on the boots he was stepping out of.

"You...understand, right?" he asked quietly, self-consciously folding his arms across his chest. He definitely didn't hate Dean anymore, and wasn't angry with him. It was just that he was still in a relationship, still jumpy about the incest thing (he heard his father's furious voice in his head most days, which was something he did his absolute best not to think about), and he had to keep his older brother at arm's length to preserve his own sanity. Not that there was much of that left - he'd been hunting freaking monsters for his entire life - but still.

"Course I do." Sam looked up to see Dean smiling warmly at him. "Just so long as it gets you to sleep. You look like you're about to fall over and I don't feel like catching you." Sam guessed that he was willing to give in on this because his need to touch him, to make contact, had already been sated this morning. What with changing his bandages, and the neck rub...which, God, had felt so perfectly fantastic that Sam had been hard-pressed to stop himself from moaning in pure pleasure.

He hadn't been able to keep his cock from rising slightly in his jeans, though. That was another reason he didn't want to be held - he didn't need a full-blown erection to deal with.

"Just wake me up before sundown. We need to get everything in order before we go after the adlet," Sam told Dean. Almost as soon as he'd finished speaking, he felt a massive yawn coming on and couldn't hold it back. Dean rolled his eyes.

"Go to bed, Sam." He didn't need much more urging than that.

Sam went to sleep at almost eight-thirty, sprawled on his back on one side of the bed, with Dean a comforting presence on the other. He woke up at one in the afternoon, his head resting on his brother's warm, solid chest and Dean's arm wrapped supportingly around the curve of his body. The first thing he felt was shock. He was in the arms of a man - and not just any man, his brother. What the hell would Jess think if she saw him? He felt himself tense...and then he felt a warm glow of happy contentment, spreading outward from somewhere in his chest. Not disgust, not horror, not anger. Just...contentment. He relaxed, body going limp and emotions calming down. Partly because this actually felt nice...and partly because his father's voice hadn't popped into his head.

Jess wouldn't mind this. It wasn't like they were doing anything bad.

"Oh. Uh - sorry." Dean must have seen him stirring, because he spoke, sounding a little embarrassed. But there was a slight challenge in his voice, too. Sam could guess what that was about easily enough. He'd rejected him completely the last time that he'd woken up in his arms, and it would be even more unjustified now than it had been then. "You moved. Rolled over and pressed yourself up against me after you'd fallen asleep." He cleared his throat, moving his arm and making to sit up. Sam raised his head from his chest to allow him to move. It wasn't until he moved that he realized he'd been able to hear Dean's heartbeat, strong and steady, and it'd been soothing to him in a childish way. "I figured putting my arm around you wouldn't hurt, and might help you sleep. Probably shouldn't've done that, though."

"Yeah, I told you not to." _You broke one of the rules,_ Sam said silently, without any real venom at all. "But...don't worry about it. I guess." Sitting up straight and folding his long legs, Sam felt himself smile slightly. "It's fine." Sure, he was irritated that he'd been touched without permission and that one of the lines he'd drawn had been slightly crossed, but it wasn't like Dean had fondled him while he was sleeping or anything (at least, not as far as he knew...Jesus, he had to stop thinking like that). He'd just let him use his body for a pillow, sacrificed one arm to pins and needles just to make him more comfortable, and then stayed in that position for four-and-a-half hours. If the digital clock on the bedside table was right. "I feel...good, too. We...might actually have to think about changing the rule about sleeping like that - at least when it comes to naps."

"'Might'?" Dean raised an eyebrow as Sam swung his legs off the bed and stood. "You slept like a baby. Now, I know that you have a girlfriend, believe me, but there's nothing wrong with something that helps you get a little rest. I've seen you tossing and turning over here in the middle of the night. Even when you're not stressing over a hunt."

Stepping into his boots, Sam didn't comment on that. He'd learned early on at Stanford, back in the days when he'd had his own room and his own bed in the dorms, that he had a...thing...about sleeping alone. He'd never done it before. At least, not for very long. Things had gotten better when he and Jess moved in together, but, now, he was facing intermittent insomnia again. God, he missed her.

"Are we doing anything for lunch?" he asked, running a hand through his hair as he turned to look at Dean. Dean shrugged, pushing himself up off of the bed.

"Was kinda planning on it, if you woke up in time," he said. Flexing his arm in an obvious effort to get blood flowing through it again, he wandered off in the direction of his duffel bag. "Just let me dig up my wallet...I know it's around here somewhere. And you," he said, turning to give him a critical once-over, "can go stick your head under the faucet or something. Try to tame those wild locks." He said the last few words with lusty sarcasm. Sam rolled his eyes but turned towards the bathroom anyway, raising a hand to his head to feel that his hair was, indeed, sticking up pretty spectacularly on one side.

A wet comb made him presentable, and the Texas heat sucked the moisture from his hair almost immediately when Dean led him out the door of their room and over a few blocks, to a cutesy little diner that looked like it'd been dragged right out of the fifties. It was apparently the place where he'd gotten their breakfast. Sam had been impressed by the pancakes, so he agreed with Dean's choice wholeheartedly. He felt good. Like his batteries had been completely recharged by a little over four hours of deep sleep, and now the air was a little clearer, the sun a little brighter. He was ravenously hungry, and couldn't help being enthusiastic about everything laid in front of from: this hunt, the search for his father, and everything else that life might throw at him in the near future. As a college student in his early twenties, Sam had had a lot of experience with power-sleeping, but its stunning results never failed to dazzle him.

Once they were seated and had placed their orders, he talked animatedly about their game plan for that night. He wasn't really a revenge-motivated type of guy (despite his dad's best efforts to drum into him the importance of finding the thing that'd murdered Sam's mother), but the idea of bringing down the monster that'd laid deep wounds into his chest and back was at least a little appealing. Dean nodded and commented in most of the right places, but Sam could tell that his mind was somewhere else entirely. Maybe at least part of what he was saying was making it through, though, so he kept talking.

"So, I know it's a residential area and people might call the cops if they hear shots, but I still think guns are - " Sam stopped, noticing the vague look in Dean's eyes. Yeah, okay, he'd completely lost him. "Dude, are you listening to me?" He reached forward to tap the table in front of his older brother. Dean blinked.

"Yeah. Yeah, course I was." He swallowed the piece of bacon cheeseburger that'd been in his mouth. "Now, uh, what'd you just say?"

Sam smirked, more amused than offended. "That we should use guns tonight, instead of knives or, say...crossbows."

"Crossbows are effective," Dean pointed out, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

"Guns are faster and easier to aim, and reload," Sam countered. "Especially in the dark - anyway. I want to try and draw this thing out, and then shoot it."

"Uh, yeah...I don't know how awesome of an idea that is." Dean shook his head, picking up his burger again. "I mean, this thing knows our scents. It'll remember that I shot at it, and that it just really hates you, for whatever reason." Sam felt his face settle into an unimpressed expression. "Even if we manage to get our hands on a pile of human intestines - and I don't know about you, but I'm definitely not volunteering - it's not gonna come out for us." Sam considered that, dipping his chin slightly in a grudging nod, and Dean continued. "'Sides. Just looking at the body count, and how many pieces have been missing from the victims, I'd say it has plenty of food right now."

"Okay..." Sam reluctantly agreed. He didn't want to admit it, but he had a point. "So." He pushed the tines of his fork into a piece of chicken in the Caesar salad that he'd ordered, giving Dean a "well-go-on" gesture with his free hand as he popped it into his mouth. It tasted pretty fresh, which was a welcome change from their usual fare of the past two weeks or so. "Let's hear your plan."

"Thought you'd never ask. Okay, what I think we should do..." Dean pushed his burger and fries out of the way and leaned forward, stabbing the red vinyl tabletop with an index finger. "...is have Robbi clear out, and then head in there right before sundown. That way, the ad-thing - "

"Adlet," Sam said as he speared a crouton, automatically correcting him. Dean rolled his eyes.

"Whatever. _That way,_ " he started over, putting exaggerated emphasis on the words, "it'll either still be asleep or just waking up. Either way, we can find its den and catch it off-guard. Keep the whole operation nice and neat and entirely inside that crazy jungle garden." Sam felt the gashes on his back and chest, though they were healing over with new, pink skin, suddenly sting with the memory of what had happened the last time they'd gone into that garden at night. Some part of that reaction must have shown on his face, because Dean continued. His voice dropped into a much gentler cadence. "I know you got hurt last time. Bad. But that's not gonna happen again, I promise. We'll be real careful, and I won't let anything near you."

"I really appreciate the concern, but I think I can look after myself, Dean," Sam responded dryly. His brother's words had sparked a flare-up of the old anger, which he hadn't felt in a week. Directed at Dean's over-protectiveness and near-obsessive need to take care of and shelter him. He pushed it down, focusing on the fact that there wasn't really anything substantial there for him to be pissed over.

"Yeah, well, the lovely needlepoint on your back tells a different story." Dean raised his eyebrows, then focused on his meal. Sam didn't say anything, used to having only part of his attention when his favorite foods (of which there were many, none of them healthy) were around. "So. D'you have any relevant comments about what I wanna do here?"

"Well...it's probably the best thing we can do, actually," Sam admitted, scraping some dressing off a piece of lettuce before raising it to his mouth. He didn't have to look up to know that Dean was smiling around a bite of burger. "If we wanna keep everything quiet and everyone safe. Kind of stupid to charge right into the adlet's territory, but..." He trailed off with a "what-can-you-do" shrug, then winced when it pulled just a little too hard on his still-tender wounds.

"We hunt monsters," Dean deadpanned. "Hate to break it to you, Sammy, but it just doesn't get much stupider than that."

Sam smiled a little, glancing back down at his half-eaten salad. "Yeah..." He chuckled softly. That was why he was in eastern Texas, with claw marks all over his torso and his brother/incestuous lover making eyes at him, instead of in Palo Alto with his girlfriend. "Don't remind me." Pushing down all the complicated emotions that had suddenly welled up, he he made eye contact with Dean again. "What should I say to Robbi? To get her off her property, I mean. She probably already thinks we're nuts, with all the searching for a 'suspect' or whatever in her sister's garden."

"Tell her whatever you want," Dean replied, finishing his burger. He wrapped his lips around his thumb, probably to suck the grease off, and Sam's upper lip automatically twitched in disgust. At the same time, though, a pulse of arousal rolled through his groin, and his face started to heat up in response. There was something about those full pink lips...but he wasn't a teenager, he could control his urges. He thought. "Trust me, she'll believe anything you say, and do anything you tell her to."

"Uh..." Sam widened his eyes slightly, gesturing with his fork for him to continue. He didn't get it. Sure, he'd been the first one to talk to Robbi, but he hadn't exactly done anything special for her.

"She likes you," Dean clarified, sounding more than a little disbelieving. "At least, she's been giving you this sappy, doe-eyed look every time I've been there." He stuck a french fry in his mouth and offered another to Sam, who turned it down and picked at the remains of his salad again. "Dude. Do you seriously not pick up on stuff like that?"

Sam leaned back in the booth they were in. For just a second, he considered acidly saying that he'd never actually learned _how_ to "pick up on stuff like that," with his love life kept exclusively in the family, from when he was a toddler up until two years ago. Hell, Jess had done everything but throw a brick inscribed with "Please date me" at his head, when she'd been trying to get his attention. Instead of doing something he'd hate himself for later, though, he just shrugged and said, "I guess I'm just not open to it. Maybe because of the girlfriend thing...maybe because I'm just clueless." He gave Dean a smile, the momentary flash of bitterness having passed. He couldn't blame his older brother for his own inability to speak "girl."

Dean nodded thoughtfully, green eyes skating away as he ran his upper teeth over his lower lip, but then his attention suddenly returned to Sam. "Yeah, that second option sounds about right." With the fries gone, Dean set his plate on the edge of the table, then gestured to Sam's salad bowl. There was nothing left except for a few wilted lettuce leaves, floating in a thick pool of dressing at the bottom. "You done with that?" When Sam nodded and set the bowl over near his plate, he shifted his weight to one side and shoved a hand into his pocket. Obviously going for his wallet.

"No, it's okay, I got it." Sam reached into his own pocket and drew out a ten and a five, which would cover their lunch almost perfectly. Placing it on the table, he felt a shy, unsure smile flicker across his mouth. "Consider it an apology for putting your arm to sleep."

Dean stared at him for a second, looking a little surprised, but then he smiled back. Much more confidently. "Well, okay, then. If you insist."

Once they had left the diner and returned to the motel room, the rest of the afternoon passed relatively quickly. Sam checked to make sure that he hadn't missed anything crucial about adlets that could get one of them killed, Dean dumped most of his clothes, soap, cologne, and other paraphernalia out of his duffel bag to make room for weapons. A disproportionate amount of weapons, granted, but they'd both learned the hard way that it was better to have five too many knives than one too few. After awhile, Sam closed the screen of his laptop and stood up from the table, in order to help field-strip and load the guns that they'd decided to use on this hunt. They had plenty, stored in the trunk, and ammunition for all of them.

When the sunlight slanting through their window had gone a deep, rich gold, Sam tucked the handgun he'd decided to go with into the waistband of his jeans and started for the door. But Dean stopped him, by laying a hand on his upper arm. Not his shoulder - he must be hyperaware of the sensitive skin there, because of what they were about to do.

"I want you to wear this," he said, when Sam turned to look at him quizzically. A bundle of old, comfortably-worn leather was shoved abruptly at his solar plexus, and he had no choice but to take it. He let it fall open with a frown, realizing, as he did so, that he was holding onto the shoulders of Dean's leather jacket.

"Your jacket?" he asked, glancing at him. He was honestly a little bewildered.

"It's a whole lot sturdier than a suit jacket," Dean said, stuffing his hands into the pockets of his jeans and nodding to the jacket as he referenced what Sam had been wearing when he was attacked. "I'm not saying it'll stop claws, but it'll definitely keep 'em from going as deep as they did last time. If, y'know, that thing jumps you again. Which it won't." He lapsed into silence for a moment, face expressionless and eyes fixed on the jacket, then spoke again. "But better safe than sorry, huh?" He patted Sam's arm, then brushed past him. "Put it on. I'll go start the car."

After the door had _click_ ed closed, Sam bit the inside of his lower lip, staring down at the jacket. He closed his eyes and gently worked the soft-but-sturdy leather between his thumbs and fingers. He'd worn it multiple times before. He remembered being fourteen, before he hit his growth spurt, shivering in the doorway of their motel room until Dean draped the heavy garment over his shoulders and pushed him out. He remembered being sixteen and lying in the back seat of the Impala, trying to help Dean get the jacket onto his cold, naked body, his movements post-orgasmically clumsy. And, of course, he remembered the last time he'd had it on. Nineteen, exhausted from sex, huddling in on himself in an effort to escape the cold, his father's rage, and his own shame.

There were some pretty bad memories associated with this jacket. And it was hot enough outside without adding the insulating properties of leather, and it looked like it might be too tight in the shoulders and chest, and he wasn't nearly helpless enough to need armor. Which was obviously what Dean intended it to be.

He shrugged it on anyway, slipping his arms through the sleeves and rolling his shoulders so that it would fall right.

To his surprise, it fit almost perfectly. He was broader in the shoulders than he had been two years ago, and that seemed to work to his advantage. The jacket had always been a little long on Dean, since it'd originally belonged to their father and John was a couple inches taller than his eldest, but it seemed to have been tailor-made for Sam. And it smelled like his brother. Alcohol (mostly whiskey), gunpowder, that weird vanilla undertone that he'd never been able to identify, cologne. The scents seemed to be ingrained into the leather. Sighing with some bittersweet emotion that felt pretty alien to him, Sam headed out, locking the door behind him.

___________________________________________________________

Dean had been right about Robbi. Sam had come up with a patchy excuse on the way to her house, about he and his partner wanting to "collect more evidence," and he almost cringed at how vague and weak it sounded as he talked to her. But she bought it, nodding with wide eyes and scurrying out of her house to where a sky-blue Volkswagen Beetle was parked in the driveway.

"Be careful in the garden, Agent Mason," she told him, eyes fixed on his torso. The leather jacket seemed to captivate her, and her attention made him a little uncomfortable, now that he was aware that she was interested in him. Or, at least, Dean had told him she was. "I turned the water on, so it's muddy."

Ten minutes later, they were wading through a veritable flood, and every other word out of Dean's mouth was a curse. "'Muddy,' my ass," he muttered, raising one soaked boot and glaring at it. "It's like friggin' Panama back here." Seeing the look Sam gave him, he scowled. "Yeah, I paid attention in sixth grade. Don't look so surprised."

"No, no, I just..." Sam trailed off, then just let it drop. It was dark in the garden, beneath the flowering trees, and they were sweeping the beams of flashlights across the soggy ground. The perfume of the blossoms was overwhelming, even covering the scent of Dean in the jacket that Sam was wearing, and the stench of decay he knew had to be present. "It's impossible to track anything in this."

"Yeah, you're telling me." Dean glanced over at him, stopping beside a rose of Sharon bush that had long since outgrown the bed it shared with stunted stalks of delphinium. "So, I've been wondering. Just what the hell is an Inuit monster doing in Texas?"

"Well..." Sam considered the question. He hadn't really found any answers to it in his research, but he was pretty sure that he could figure it out. Dean moved a little deeper into the garden, heading towards something that looked like a bank of weeping willows covered with small pink flowers, and Sam followed him. "Things just migrate, I guess." He shrugged, keeping an eye out for any pawprints, even though he knew that the water would have washed them away. "I mean, harpies are Greek, werewolves are European, nagas are Asian...but we've found all of those in the States. They get pushed out by hunters or normal, clueless people, or they follow their food. It's not that weird."

"Hmm." Dean grunted in acknowledgment of the answer, then crouched down right in front of the bank of maybe-willows and poked his flashlight between the trailing branches. "Oh, man." Sam saw his shoulders twitch with shock at whatever it was he'd found. "Hey, Sammy, you'd better come and take a look at this."

Sam went over and dropped into a crouch next to him. As he peered between the branches and saw what was obviously a deep den, dug into the soil and flooded, Dean quietly said, "Didn't you say these things have puppies?"

Sam aimed his flashlight down into the murky water as he became aware of something - the smell of rotting flesh that he'd been expecting. He swallowed when he saw four or five small forms huddled at the bottom of the flooded den. They'd obviously drowned, and been dead for several weeks. Right around the time that Robbi's sister, Rachel, had been killed and partially eaten. He remembered wondering just how much water this garden needed to thrive in the dry Texas heat, and felt a chill despite said heat and his jacket.

"That's why it went after Rachel, and why it's terrorizing Robbi now," he murmured. "She killed its offspring."

"I'm just kind of glad we don't have five more to deal with," Dean replied, getting to his feet. "So. We've got a grieving monster mother on our hands...great." Seemingly unconsciously, he reached for the gun that was tucked into the waistband of his jeans. Their other weapons were in the duffel bag that was slung across his back.

"We only need one shot," Sam reminded him, standing. "It's not immortal. We don't have to do anything weird to kill it." He pushed his free hand into one of the pockets of his jeans, using the one that held his flashlight to look around. "The water will have driven it out of its den. It could be anywhere."

"Nah...I've got a feeling that it's still around here." Pulling his handgun out and holding both it and his flashlight level, Dean took a couple steps away from the den. His every movement produced a loud squelching sound, and Sam winced a little, realizing that there was no way that they'd be able to sneak up on the adlet with the ground so soft. "C'mon, you bitch." Directing the insult to the concealing plants all around him, Dean thumbed the safety of his gun off. "I wanna make up for missing last time."

He was obviously on edge. When Sam made to go off and check out another part of the garden, he looked over his shoulder and shook his head at him.

"Oh, hell, no," he said. "I'm not letting you out of my sight."

"That didn't make much of a difference before," Sam pointed out. Dean, looking up into every tree and behind every bush, didn't respond.

The sun had fully set now, taking what little light had been filtering through the plants with it. Sam wasn't uncomfortable in the dark, having worked and trained in it for most of his life (it was shocking how many monsters obeyed the horror-movie trope of only being out at night), but he felt apprehensive with only the beam of his flashlight to guide him. He was very aware of the stitched-up gashes on his torso. Not to mention the fact that the temperature had yet to drop and he was sweating in his jacket, and the wetness that had somehow leaked into his sturdy boots and was squishing between his toes with every step. There was no sound besides those that he and his brother were making, and the almost-ringing noise that water made as it flowed through the system that irrigated the garden.

"Maybe we should turn off the water," he suggested quietly. Dean, an undefined figure ahead of him when his flashlight wasn't aimed in his direction, stopped.

"Yeah, that's probably a good idea," he agreed, turning around. "Pretty sure I saw a valve or something back near the house...come on." He gestured with his flashlight for Sam to follow him as he passed him. He would've, if a sudden quiet rustling hadn't caught his attention.

"Dean, wait," he said, half-turning in the direction that he'd heard it coming from and holding up a hand. Dean stopped.

"What is it?" he asked. The tension in his voice had ratcheted up a few notches. "You hear something?"

"Be quiet for a second." Sam listened, straining his ears. He focused, trying to pick up on any sound at all, until he was pretty sure that he could hear his own heart beating. Dean shifted his weight, but that was the only sound outside of his body. The rustling didn't come back. He shrugged. "No, I guess I didn't. Must've just been the wind or something."

"Okay, if you're sure." Dean mirrored his shrug, then turned back around to face in the direction of Robbi's house. He only made it a couple steps before something blazed out of the nearby shrubs, struck his legs with enough force to make him shout in surprise and pain, and knocked him down into the mud and flooded grass.

Dean's gun went off before Sam could even snarl, "Shit - " and charge forward, but the shot must have gone wild and hit nothing more than a branch, because a sudden flurry of heavily-scented flowers cascaded down. Sam swiped his arm through the air to clear his field of vision, then yanked his own gun out. His brother was on his back, having slipped or wrested himself out of the strap of his duffel bag, holding something relatively small but extremely pissed away from his vulnerable throat. It was snapping and howling and clawing at the air, and it looked like his forearms were getting scratched up, but Dean still managed to throw it off of himself.

As the thing (which had to be the adlet that they'd come here to kill) scrambled onto all fours from where it'd landed on its back, growling, some part of Sam's brain whirred to life and started analyzing it. It was small, maybe about the size of a twelve-year-old. It was built to walk upright, he could tell that. Its hindpaws were identical to those of a dog, but the forepaws were more like stubby hands, with opposable thumbs. Raising his gun, Sam took in its short tail, wiry, humanoid form, and thick coat of silver-gray fur. It reminded him of a Siberian husky.

When he fired, it didn't do anything but kick up a spray of water and wet earth. The adlet had moved too fast, launching itself back towards Dean, who'd been trying to get to his feet. It knocked him down again, slamming into his chest and forcing the air out of his lungs in an explosive, tortured exhale. He punched it as Sam lunged forward. The blow had been weak, but it still knocked the thing off of him. Sam's boot struck something angular - Dean's gun? Had he dropped it? - and sent it sliding away as he made it over to grab his brother's shoulder and haul him up.

"Son of a _bitch_ ," Dean swore, kicking his dropped duffel bag out of the way as he hastily backed away from the adlet, which was confusedly shaking its head.

Sam could see shallow, red-ribbon scratches on Dean's arms and his chest, through his torn T-shirt. He didn't have time to ask him if he was all right, though. He had to kill this thing.

Dean's flashlight lay in a raised bed, projecting a bar of light between the two of them and their monster. Sam stepped into that light to take his stance. Everything around him had the crystal clarity and fluid slowness that only came from a bloodstream full of adrenaline, and he could hear Dean's raspy, shocked breathing behind him. His finger tightened on the trigger - and the damn thing was moving again before he could shoot, getting ready to jump as it bared the same fangs that'd been buried in his chest about a week ago.

Those fangs would hit Dean's exposed throat, he saw with sudden, startling certainty. Slice into his jugular and trachea, so he'd bleed out or suffocate or both. It would break him so completely and so quickly that neither Sam nor anyone else would be able to fix him, and then he'd be gone, green eyes glassy and full lips cold. Sam would lose him.

He couldn't even handle the thought.

He wasn't really aware of moving. Just that complete horror flooded him, and there was a litany of _no no no no no_ \- pounding inside his head, and then he was standing in a different place. He'd thrown his arm out. And before he had time to react to what his body had just done without his permission, the adlet crashed into his extended arm. It felt to the ground with a yelp, and his forearm stung with the impact, but the creature's fangs hadn't broken through the leather of Dean's jacket. Just left indentations in it.

The adlet was squirming on the ground, whimpering - it looked like he'd succeeded in knocking a couple of its teeth loose of its gums. It was on its back, so he was able to get a clear shot at its chest. And, this time, he managed to hit it before it got out of the way. Sam winced as blood misted across his jeans and the hand that held the gun.

He glanced at Dean, realizing that he was breathing just as hard as his older brother, and lowered the gun as he straightened up. He swallowed, starting to feel shaky and exhausted now that the adrenaline was wearing off. And a little surprised by his own emotions.

Dean looked at the body of the adlet, then made eye contact with Sam, nodding.

"Good shot," he said, rough voice approving. "And...thanks. It was really gunning for me, for some reason...you'd just better not have screwed up my jacke - "

He abruptly stopped talking when Sam hugged him, hard. Dean was soaked and muddy and smelled like wet dog, but he put his arms around him anyway and crushed him to his chest, burying his lower face between his brother's neck and shoulder and squeezing his eyes shut tight. He needed to reassure himself that he'd really succeeded and saved Dean's life. He could not lose this. Warmth, safety, happiness, peace...he hadn't been able to bear the possibility that everything that made Dean up, everything he got out of him, would be gone.

Sam sighed when his older brother hugged him back, almost holding him. They stayed like that for awhile, despite the blood and soil-laced water spattered all over both of them and the body at their feet, until Sam had calmed himself down and could let go.

"Feel better?" Dean asked quietly when he lowered his arms and stepped back. There was no sarcasm or amusement in the question.

"Yeah." Sam nodded, then looked down at the dead adlet. "Uh, okay...we need to get rid of that."

"Oh, no, I figured we could just leave it there. Yeah, Sammy, of course we need to get rid of it." Giving him a grin, Dean put an arm around his shoulders and squeezed. Offering comfort and normality, which seemed to have been his job for as long as Sam could remember. "C'mon. Let's go get a tarp outta the car."

Sam allowed himself to be led, turning to Dean when they were almost out of Rachel's overgrown (but once again safe) garden and softly saying, "I'm gonna need to sleep with you for at least part of the night. Like when I got hurt."

It was a little too dark for him to see Dean's eyes light up, but he definitely caught his wide, genuine smile and the note of euphoria in his voice as he said, "Well, we can definitely do that, don't worry." He stopped, and turned so that he and Sam were facing each other. He put a hand on his shoulder. "Hey. You okay?"

"I'm just fine," Sam said with a smile. "We finished the hunt, didn't we? We did something good."

Even so, he took comfort from it when Dean cupped the back of his head and, after a moment's hesitation in which he probably remembered he wasn't supposed to kiss him on the mouth, grudgingly kissed his nose. He smirked, pushing him away, but the movement was gentle. Even though he was thinking of Jess with a soft sort of guilt, realizing that he really shouldn't be letting his brother kiss him like that with her in his life. Even if she was hundreds of miles away.

"I told you, I'm fine," he said. He wasn't, but he wasn't thinking about why. "Don't we have a monster to burn?"

"Yeah, we'd better do that," Dean agreed, but he still looked at him with some concern. "I wanna get you home and make sure that your arm's okay."

"I just wanna go to bed," Sam said honestly.

"That, too." Dean put a hand on his upper back and patted affectionately as they turned and walked. "Definitely that, too."


	15. Chapter Fifteen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay recently - I've been pretty sick, but it was nothing serious and I'm over it now.

When Dean woke up, Sam wasn't in his arms, or pressed against him, but they were still in the same bed. His little brother was sprawled out close enough for his lanky body to warm the sheets, face buried in the pillow with his folded arms supporting his head. Dead to the world. Sitting up slowly, doing his best not to disturb him, Dean couldn't keep a smile off of his face. As far as he knew, Sam had slept like a log, not waking up or writhing his way through a nightmare once. He was glad. He'd been a little worried about him last night, with the way he'd been barely trembling and the shell-shocked look on his face. But both of them crawling in under the same set of covers seemed to have done the trick and put him immediately at ease. Dean had fallen asleep on his side, Sam's back against his chest, and woken up just once to find Sam's legs thrown over his own and his head nestled on his shoulder.

Extricating himself from the sheets and standing up, Dean left Sam to sleep in. He almost certainly needed the rest. He'd showered, dressed, and was on Sam's laptop, looking for anything that might involve their father, by the time that he woke up. Dean stopped waging war against the ridiculously-tiny trackpad when he heard a low groan, and glanced over at Sam's bed. They'd wordlessly chosen to sleep there. He watched as he shifted a tiny bit under the covers, then stilled. Still lying face-down, he threw an arm out, groping slowly around in the spot that Dean had been in half an hour ago. Dean waited until he'd raised his head, squinting confusedly over at the other, empty bed, to exclaim, "Welcome to the future, Rip Van Winkle."

Sam rolled over onto his back before sitting up, raking a hand through his sleep-mussed hair. "You didn't read that."

"Nope," Dean agreed, turning in his chair so that he could face him completely and pushing the laptop away. When that particular book had been assigned to his English class, they'd been hunting down a woman who'd been attempting monster-to-human organ transplants, with results that could only be described as "ghastly." He'd been too busy with _Gray's Anatomy_ (the actual surgical volume, not the soap opera) for anything else. But he didn't say any of that. "So. I've been on your laptop - "

"Dude, come on - " Sam automatically started to complain, but Dean raised a hand and cut him off.

"Hunting," he reminded him. "Sharing a room, sharing a car..." He stopped himself from saying, "Sharing a bed," just in time. That might be pushing it, even though it was true sometimes. "I don't know what you got used to at college, Sammy, but your personal space now officially extends to about three inches around your body. And that's it."

"You could at least ask," Sam muttered, swinging his legs out of bed and forcing himself up into a standing position. Dean relented. Things were going absolutely fantastic, but...he didn't want to rock the boat.

"Okay, it's all yours again," he said, as Sam leaned across the bed to grab his phone from the nightstand. "I was looking for cases that seemed like the type Dad would go after." He gestured to the laptop, watching Sam turn his phone on. Presumably checking for any messages that he might've missed last night. "I figure that, if we keep hunting, we'll either run into him or find out where he is. That might've been his plan in the first place, sending us down here."

"That...actually sounds like a pretty good plan." Sam looked up from his phone, giving Dean a nod. "Definitely our best bet. Though, if he's leaving clues for us or whatever and was never in any trouble in the first place, then I don't get why he disappeared."

And there would be a massive shouting match when they found him. If this turned out to be some sort of stupid training exercise (obviously just meant for Dean), then he would find it pretty hard to take Dad's side. Sam would be furious, and he'd have a right to be.

"But did you find anything?" Sam continued, dropping his attention back to his phone as he padded towards the bathroom. Dean shook his head.

"Not so far, but you're welcome to pick up where I left off as soon as you've showered. I'm gonna go grab breakfast." Standing, he flipped the screen of Sam's laptop down and pushed the chair in, then noticed a frown flicker across Sam's face as eh thumbed through something on his cell phone. "Who called you?"

"Jess." Of course. Between burning the body of the adlet and then falling into bed together, Sam still eaten up by some emotion Dean couldn't, for the life of him, identify, he obviously hadn't had time to touch base with his girlfriend. She had to be freaked out about him. Dean, who had never once had the (admittedly healthy) sort of relationship that Sam and Jess did, couldn't quite understand their commitment to each other. "And...Robbi."

He looked surprised when he saw her number. Stepping into his boots, Dean raised an eyebrow. "What'd she want?"

"Dunno." Punching in a number that, going by the absence of an area code, was not Robbi's (it had to be registered in California with his cell), Sam put the phone to his ear. "I'll know by the time you get back."

Dean left before he could start talking to Jess. He knew that it was pretty immature of him to harbor the very beginnings of a grudge against her; he barely knew her beyond the fact that she was a stereotypical hot, blonde co-ed, and his boyfriend/brother/only person he'd ever really loved had been technically single when she hooked up with him. But he still felt somehow hostile whenever Sam mentioned or called her. She was the shield that his younger sibling hid behind after shying away from an affectionate touch or flinching at an endearment. She wasn't the only thing standing between them, or even the biggest, but she was the one that he tended to focus on.

Still, though. They obviously had a pretty good relationship. Sam called Jess every single night, and if he couldn't quite manage that, then she called him. That spoke of some sort of loyalty. Maybe that was what Sam liked so freaking much about her.

Almost to the diner that seemed to be quickly becoming their one and only source of food while they were here, Dean forced himself to stifle a bitter snort. Even though, if loyalty had been what Sam wanted...he could've given him that.

**Mid-August, 1992**

Okay. Three-twenty-two, and there was no way that the clock wasn't stuck. _C'mon...hurry up..._

Dean fidgeted in his uncomfortable seat, glaring at the offending clock, and swore when his knees banged (for about the millionth time) against the underside of the desk. It was too small for him. These desks were too small for most of the boys in his class, actually, but apparently the school didn't have the money to replace them. He didn't really care. All he knew was that, in the very last class of the day, when there were three minutes to go until the final bell and the Louisiana heat was making his T-shirt stick to his back...his desk and its attached chair was a torture device designed in the deepest pits of Hell.

He tapped his fingers on the wood-laminate surface, the calluses on the tips that came from field-stripping weapons making the gesture noisy. The clock sluggishly ticked to three-twenty-three. Dean sighed loudly, which earned him a glare from his Earth Science teacher. She was currently lecturing about volcanoes or something, and he ignored her. Volcanoes weren't interesting or useful, and he didn't need any of his teachers to like him for the few weeks that he'd be here. He just needed the bell to ring, so that he could swing by one of the fourth grade classrooms, pick up Sammy, and then head back to their motel. There was a pool there, and he guessed that his little brother would be just as eager to take advantage of it as he was.

"Dean..."

The eraser end of a pencil poked him in the back, right below his left shoulder blade, as someone hissed his name. He twitched a little, as if shaking off a fly. His mouth tightened a bit in annoyance, but it was three-twenty-four now, and he was too close to the end of the school day to bite somebody's head off right now.

"Dean."

Another poke, harder this time. And the hiss was more urgent. He huffed out another sigh, pouring what little patience was left in him into just _ignoring_ as he folded his arms on the desk. Dean slumped forward, eyes half-lidded, and buried the lower part of his face in them. It was three-twenty-five. He could swear that it was. So why wasn't the bell ringing?

"Hey! Dean!"

The third time that he was poked - well, honestly, more like jabbed, with an intent to bruise - Dean twisted in his seat and snapped, " _What_? What the hell d'you want?" He didn't wait for an answer, though, because the bell rang almost the second after the last word was out of his mouth. Immediately, he was prying himself out of his seat and scooping up his backpack, the owner of the pencil completely forgotten. He needed to go get Sammy.

"Dean! Wait up!" Apparently, it wasn't that easy. Dean wasn't even out of the classroom when someone called out to him yet again. Rolling his eyes and muttering a couple choice profanities under his breath, he adjusted the worn straps of his backpack on his shoulders and turned.

"Okay, fine... _what_?" He could clearly see who'd been bugging him now. Trent. A kid about a foot shorter than Dean's (temporary, he was sure) five-eight, with stringy blonde hair and brown eyes that bulged out like a frog's. Dean only knew his first name, and that was only because he had Math with him and Trent was even worse with graphing than he was. He got yelled at a lot.

Now, Trent was standing right in front of him, staring up at him with his frog-eyes wide and the tip of his tongue hanging out of his mouth in a tired pant. Dean folded his arms across his narrow chest, and waited. He couldn't imagine why anyone would bother him. Especially Trent, who was the perfect size and shape to be stuffed into a locker. No one messed with Dean Winchester, if they could help it - his reputation was as much a part of his average school experience as bad grades and hostile teachers. His dad drove a scary-looking black car, he had an illegal pocket knife on him at all times, and anyone who touched his small, bright little brother had about five minutes to live once he found out about it.

"My brother's havin' a party," Trent chirped, once he'd caught his breath. It took him a bit, in the heat and the oppressive humidity.

"Oh." Dean offered a witheringly-disinterested stare. "Good for him." He turned to go. P.S. 813 was a K-8 school, and Sammy's classroom was all the way on the other side of the building. He'd be waiting for him.

"Don't you know about him?" Trent, apparently, was as bad at taking hints as he was at graphing. He trotted beside Dean, accompanying him down the linoleum-covered hall.

"Nope." Trent had said it like everyone knew about his brother. Dean had only been here for a few days - not long enough to get caught up in all the local knowledge. Though, even if he'd been there longer, he probably wouldn't have known. He didn't care, for the same reason that he didn't care about volcanoes. It wasn't useful. It wouldn't keep him alive or his family safe.

"He's nineteen," Trent told him, doing a surprisingly good job of keeping up. When that failed to get any sort of reaction, he added, "He's been in juvie three different times. Pot."

His tone suggested that that was something to be proud of. Dean glanced at him, raising both eyebrows. Juvie meant that he'd gotten caught breaking the law, and if he got caught, then he was stupid. And besides, Dean didn't exactly hold stoners in a very high regard. Slow reflexes, little concern, low intelligence: dead men walking. "Again. Good for him."

"He's having a party tonight - " Yeah, he knew that. This kid was like a broken record. " - and I want you to come."

"Why the hell would you want me there?" But Dean was pretty sure he knew. The pocket knife. His blase attitude about getting in a fight. Probably even the fact that he currently lived in a rundown motel instead of an actual house - he was different, he was dangerous, and that probably made him pretty cool in Trent's eyes. Or at least interesting.

"I think you're gonna have fun," Trent responded. As if Dean had already said he was going. He hitched his backpack up higher on his small, rounded shoulders, grinning up at him. There was something sly in the expression that Dean really wouldn't have expected from him. "There's gonna be beer there, and bourbon and stuff - " He pronounced it "bor - bon." " - 'cause he had me go and dig the key to the liquor cabinet out of our dad's liquor cabinet out of his sock drawer. And there's gonna be girls." His bulging eyes glittered. "College girls."

Dean didn't have an immediate answer for that. Alcohol wasn't anything new to him. His father drank heavily, and so did all of the other adults that he was close to. Most of them didn't see any problem with letting him have a beer himself every once in awhile. But girls...that was different. Girls were interesting. He didn't know all that much about them - only what he'd glimpsed when Dad picked one up and brought her home. He was old hat at kissing and touching and holding, having run his hands over Sammy's tiny, soft body more times than he could count, pressing his lips to his warm hair, and letting his fingertips rest lightly between his legs as they lay curled up under the covers of whatever bed they were currently sleeping in. But Sam was a boy. Dean had never done anything like that with a girl, even though you were supposed to. Even though it was normal.

"Girls?" he asked, doing his best to keep his voice casual and disinterested.

" _College_ girls," Trent repeated, his grin still firmly in place. He must've sensed, somehow, that he almost had him. "My brother knows a ton of 'em. Fucks one every night, almost."

Dean highly doubted that, but didn't say anything. That was something you could do with another guy, but it was awkward, and he knew that sometimes it hurt. It was different with girls, he'd heard. Better.

The thought of real, actual sex, of being inside someone, made him feel thrilled and like he was about to hurl at the same time. He couldn't imagine doing anything like that. Not even with Sammy.

Speaking of which...

"Can't make it," he said. Both the regret and the relief that found their way into his voice were genuine. "I've gotta watch my little brother. Our dad's outta town." Tracking down a pair of skinwalkers with Caleb. But he didn't need to add that.

Trent scoffed, not impressed by that excuse. "So ditch him. He'll be fine without a babysitter for a couple hours, won't he?" He shrugged. Something in his backpack rattled. "You guys're staying at the Red Gator, aren't you? Just dump him on somebody else."

They were pretty near the fourth grade classrooms now. Dean wasn't sure if it was Sammy's proximity, or if he would've given the same answer back on the other side of the school, but he slowly shook his head either way. "Nah...I don't wanna do that." He wouldn't trust his younger brother to a stranger. Especially not the kind of stranger that frequented their usual motel. "He's only nine. Doesn't do all that hot on his own."

"Well..." Trent looked pained. "Uh...you don't even have to stay all that long. Just show up, have a couple drinks, get a few phone numbers." He sounded like he was repeating something that he'd heard on TV. Or maybe from his brother. "Then leave. You wouldn't be there more than an hour, I promise."

It was tempting. Sam would probably have homework, and he could stay in the room and do that while Dean was gone. He might not even mind.

Except Dean knew that he would mind. HE'd be hurt about being abandoned, and he'd whine about it, and he might even cry, once his big brother wasn't there to see him acting like a baby. And anything at all could happen if he wasn't there. The crappy wiring in the room could start a fire. Something could break in (yeah, some _thing_ , not some _one_ \- that was a greater concern and always would be). Dad could even come back and find Sammy all alone. There was no way he could go, he realized with a brief flash of irritation.

And yet he still, somehow, heard himself saying, "Probably won't make it, but gimme the time and the address. Just in case."

Trent happily rattled it off, grinning from ear to ear now that a promise had (in his mind) been made. He scurried off before Dean could say anything else, leaving him standing in the middle of the hallway until Sammy finally found him.

"You didn't come to my room." That was the first thing out of his mouth - plaintive, accusing. He stood close to Dean and looked up at him, obviously wanting a warm, lingering, apologetic hug, but he didn't initiate it. In the last two years, he'd learned what they could and couldn't do in public. He didn't understand, but he'd learned.

Dean reached down to ruffle his shaggy brown hair, giving him some of the contact that he (well...both of them, actually, if he was being honest) was craving, and offered him a sheepish smile. He knew that it would look a little distracted, or a little weak. But there was nothing he could do about it besides hope that Sammy wouldn't notice.

"Sorry," he apologized, noticing that Sammy's red backpack was bulging. Almost certainly with homework - English, Math, Social Studies, maybe Art. His teacher was a little overenthusiastic, which Dean had seen for himself by helping him out as best he could during the last few evenings. "I was talking to someone. Must've lost track of the time."

"What were you talking about?" Pacified, Sammy took his hand, a gesture that Dean'd hadn't had the heart or the reason to discourage. It might be a little odd for a thirteen-year-old and a nine-year-old to be holding hands, but at least it wouldn't get one or both of them called into the counselor's office and accused of incest. And besides - Dean never felt more content in public than when Sam's small, warm hand was in his own.

"Nothing important." Sammy was studying him with curious eyes, the hazel irises a flat blue-gray under the harsh fluorescents of the hallway, but he didn't feel like telling him about what he'd been invited to. They had very different opinions about beer and other alcohol. Sammy hated it when Dad drank, and absolutely despised it when Dean did, almost seeming to view it as some sort of betrayal. And he didn't want to provoke a high-pitched, vulnerable, "Well...you're not gonna go, are you?" It knocked the wind right out of him whenever his brother took on that heartbreaking tone. And he'd be lying no matter what answer he gave. "Got a lot of homework?"

"Yeah," Sammy muttered, sighing. The novelty of homework had worn off for him awhile back. He glanced up at Dean again, swinging their joined hands and biting his soft, pink lower lip as he changed the subject. "You okay?"

"Yeah," Dean echoed. They'd just left the building, and he felt like he was going to melt. His younger brother wasn't so affected.

"Good, 'cause a bunch'a stuff happened today, and I couldn't wait to tell you - "

He let Sammy chatter, half-thinking about getting the both of them into the soothing water of the small pool, and raiding his tiny emergency fund to buy pop from the vending machine, and cradling him on his lap while he met his homework head-on...and half-thinking about Trent and his older brother. And girls. College girls.

Sammy was a smart kid. He'd be okay on his own for a little under an hour.

Wouldn't he?

**Early October, 2005**

Breakfast was pretty quick; just pastries and coffee, Dean eating his share while Sam was in the shower and vice-versa. They both wanted to get on the road as soon as possible, because Sam had found a hunt that looked like it was right up Dad's alley. One of the disused reactors on Three Mile Island, off the coast of Pennsylvania, had appeared to be haunted for the last twenty years or so. The locals weren't too surprised by this, Sam had said. Seeing the blank look that Dean gave him as he was toweling his brush cut dry, he sighed and set down his paper cup full of coffee. Or, more accurately, about a teaspoon of coffee and seven or eight fluid ounces of cream and foam.

"Greatest nuclear disaster in American history?" he tried, raising both eyebrows. "C'mon, Dean. You knew Panama was a swamp..."

"Yeah, but this isn't ringing any bells, Sammy." Dean stepped into his jeans, pulling them up over his hips, then offered an apologetic shrug. "Sorry."

Sam sighed again, but didn't say anything else about how much he didn't know. Maybe he was just getting used to Dean's general cluelessness when it came to stuff that wasn't lore or pop culture; maybe he remembered that he'd dropped out of high school. Either way, he explained.

"The reactor started melting down because there wasn't enough coolant water," he told him. "They evacuated the island and sealed the core completely off, but I'm not sure that anyone actually died. So that would make ghosts kind of strange." He frowned a little, leaning back in the chair that he was sitting in, then picked up his slightly-coffee again and sipped at it. "But, like I said, I'm not sure. It's been a long time since I learned about this. I really need to do some research."

"Well, there'll be plenty of time for you to do all kinds of nerdy stuff on the way," Dean told him, doing the last few buttons up on the flannel shirt that he was wearing. He left a couple at the top open, revealing the olive-drab T-shirt he had underneath, and his amulet. "You all packed up?"

"Yeah...but we need to stop by Robbi's house before we leave town." Finished eating, Sam stood up and cleared off the small table. "I listened to the message she left me. She wants to talk to us one last time."

"What about?" Dean was immediately wary. They'd invaded the garden of this woman's dead sister multiple times, after all, and fired off shots in it, and killed something that was vaguely human. They hadn't really acted like FBI agents, either. He wouldn't be surprised if Robbi Jones had gotten suspicious and called the cops on them.

"No idea." Sam, who was obviously a whole hell of a lot more trusting than Dean was, picked up his backpack and slung it over his shoulder. "But it can't hurt to at least check in with her - make sure we didn't miss anything last night."

Despite his misgivings, Dean agreed, and drove them to Robbi's house once they had checked out of their room (and returned what they could of their rented suits - the clerk gave them extremely dirty looks and charged them extra). He relaxed within seconds of her answering the door, realizing that this was completely innocent. She just wanted to make sure they were all right, and ask about what had happened after she had left. Dean assured her that they'd gotten the son of a bitch who'd killed her sister, and that seemed to be all she needed hear.

But even though she nodded in response to everything he told her, polite and attentive, she obviously only had eyes for Sam. Dean didn't have to have graduated from high school to tell that there was a third reason she'd wanted them to swing by. And his little brother was, of course, so oblivious that it should be classified as a medical condition.

When he strode off to do a quick once-over of the garden, Dean waited until he was out of earshot, then sighed explosively and shook his head. "I'm sorry about him," he said, turning to Robbi. "He's got all the right equipment, trust me, but half the time, I'm not even sure he knows what it is." Her crush on Sam was cute, and he knew that it wasn't going anywhere, so he was okay with it. Robbi was not a threat to their fragile relationship.

"No, don't apologize for him," she said, shaking her own head with wide eyes. His crude explanation didn't seem to have bothered her. "I wouldn't expect him to notice anything like that." A faint pink blush spread across her cheeks. "He's obviously already got someone."

Dean cocked an eyebrow. He was pretty sure that neither he nor Sam had ever mentioned Jess to Robbi, even offhandedly. She must be pretty observant, to notice that he wasn't single. "Yeah," he conceded, disliking the fact that it was true. "He does."

"And I'd never even think about coming between you and him," Robbi continued, glancing towards the garden. She folded her arms underneath her small breasts. "You're very good for him. I can tell."

This time, Dean cocked his head. A pang of fear, a familiar one that'd always come from someone realizing that he and Sam were "together" (and maybe taking a step towards realizing that they were also brothers), rose in his stomach, but he shoved it down. He itched at the scabbed-over scratches on his arms, neutrally asking, "Excuse me?" There was no way they could've given off that kind of vibe. They'd been professional.

He told himself that he'd conveniently forgotten about the day when they'd stomped out of the garden to go scream at each other.

"I came back to get my purse last night," she admitted quietly. "I pulled up while you were shooting at something, and I saw you kiss him when I was getting back in my car. You're a very nice couple...don't worry, I won't say anything to anyone. I know that you're probably not supposed to be involved with your partner."

It took him a second to realize that she still thought of them both as FBI agents. So...nope, not observant at all, actually.

"No," he said with a short, dry laugh. He glanced down at his boots, hiding an ironic smile. "No, we're really, _really_ not supposed to be involved with each other. We've gotten in trouble for it a couple times, actually." Because you weren't supposed to enter your younger brother in one smooth thrust on the bed you both slept in, and he wasn't supposed to gasp and mewl out his appreciation. But not only had that actually happened - they'd been seen. By someone who was more concerned with the incest factor than the emotional one.

"Oh." Robbi's mouth twisted into a sympathetic frown. "That's awful. I'm so sorry, but..." She shook her head, suddenly looking a little fierce. Well. As fierce as a woman who stood under five feet and couldn't be a hundred pounds soaking wet could possibly look, at least. "Don't leave him, Agent Waters. I think he really needs you. So even if one of you gets transferred or something, and you're not partners anymore, don't..." She trailed off, shaking her head. A strand of pale brown hair got caught in the thick lashes of one eye as she did so, and she brushed it out of the way with a flick of her wrist.

"I won't." Sam had emerged from the garden, and flashed Dean a thumb's-up. He'd be back in a few seconds, and then they could leave for Pennsylvania. "I couldn't if I tried. Believe me."

**Mid-August, 1992**

**Dean was drunk.**

**He had never actually been that way before - he'd never had the desire, or enough alcohol. But he'd seen his dad less than sober more than a few times, and after a couple more plastic cups of warm, terrible beer than he probably should've had, he had all the signs. He was stumbling, he couldn't seem to get his eyes to focus, and his words wouldn't come out of his mouth the way that he wanted them to. They all ran together.**

**Getting drunk had mostly been an accident. He definitely hadn't intended to end up like this, when he'd walked out of the motel room several hours ago. Having finally made up his mind to just put in an appearance at the party and get an eyeful of the fairer sex, he told Sam that he was going to the convenience store a few streets away to pick up some stuff that they were out of. Bread, milk, things like that. Sammy, he'd said, had to stay here and try to make some headway on his homework. His little brother had pouted, but agreed.**

**Dean had found Trent's house easily enough. All the lights were on, rap music (which he personally couldn't stand, but, hey, to each his own) was thudding out of the half-open door, and there was an empty and dismantled six-pack strewn over the lawn. After stepping inside, he found himself disappointed. The house was only at about quarter capacity, and there were ten guys (Dean included) to the three unremarkable girls. He was obviously wasting his time. He turned to go back home - and back to Sammy, who would be diligently waiting up for him even after finishing his homework - but then Trent was suddenly beside him, holding two cups of embarrassingly-foamy beer.**

**"Hey, dude!" he chirped, grinning. The "dude" sounded incredibly forced. He shoved one of the cups into Dean's hand, clumsily splashing about half the contents over their wrists, and Dean realized that Trent had probably already had more than a few. "You made it! That's great!"**

**"Yeah. Great." The house's door opened up onto the living room, which was where they were standing now. Dean set the cup of beer down on the naked wood of the coffee table, but Trent picked it back up and handed it to him again, like a toddler learning basic motor skills. "Listen. Trent. I know I just got here and all, but..."**

**"Aw, dude, no way. You can't leave yet. There's hardly anybody here!" Before Dean could say "Exactly," Trent had an arm around his ribcage. He was too short to reach his shoulders.**

**He introduced him to everyone else in the house, including his stoner brother, Tyrone. With how often he seemed to trip over his own feet and dump light bear into the carpet, Dean wasn't sure if the arm was so he could lead him or so he could lean on him. Either way, it got old really fast, and he sipped continuously at his cup to keep himself busy and not strangling Trent. The hard liquor had been a real exaggeration, but there was plenty of beer, and Trent made sure to keep both their cups full. Dean was dead certain that he'd had too much before he ever even showed up, but he didn't tell him that. If he wanted to be a moron and drink himself sick, then he could damn well do that. Unfortunately, by the time he let go and staggered off with a distinct greenish cast to his face, Dean was feeling fairly buzzed. And more girls had shown up. One particular brunette all but made him weak in the knees, and he knew that he couldn't blame all of that one the booze that was sitting heavily in his stomach.**

**Her name was Kelly. He learned that by drinking with her, on the couch in Trent's living room. Which was where he was now. He wasn't quite sure how he'd started talking to her, but he stayed, because it'd be rude to leave in the middle of a conversation, and one more beer couldn't hurt. Since he was already hammered and all. She had long legs and hazel eyes. He'd head home soon.**

**"You are way too cute," Kelly enthused, her eyes wide and fixed on his face with a full cup held just below her plump lips. They were currently quirked up into a smile. "I can't even believe it." Alcohol obviously made her bubbly. Dean wasn't sure what it made him yet, other than drunk. Because he was definitely drunk. He'd stood up with empty cups a few minutes ago, and nearly fallen on his face on the way to the kitchen. Luckily, a wall had broken his fall, though his face hurt just a little bit now. He'd had more than he'd thought.**

**"Aw, c'mon," he said with a grin, leaning back and putting one hand behind his head. The other was still wrapped around his beer. "You're not giving yourself enough credit, go...gor..." He couldn't quite get the word to come out the way that it was supposed to. "Gorgeous." She really was pretty, in an intriguing way. He could feel just a little bit of what he felt for Sammy for her, though only the physical stuff. Speaking of Sammy...he should really go. His brother had to be getting worried. But he didn't move.**

**Kelly giggled. The sound wasn't all that attractive, but Dean did his best to overlook it. "I'm serious, you're adorable." Her voice was dripping with overdone, syrupy affection. He didn't really like that, or being called "cute" and "adorable," but the alcohol took the edge off of everything. "How old are you?"**

**"Sophomore," Dean said easily, voicing the first word that came to his mind. The "s" at the beginning went soft and watery in his mouth.**

**"No way." Kelly adamantly shook her head. "In high school, maybe."**

**"Yeah, yeah. High school." He gestured enthusiastically with his cup before bringing it to his mouth. Quite a bit had slopped out as he waved it around, but he barely noticed. "Sophomore in high school."**

**"So, you're...fifteen?" she guessed, pushing a wavy chunk of hair behind one ear.**

**"Sixteen." A lie by three years; but that didn't matter, he lied about his age all the time.**

**"But you look so much younger." Kelly seemed fascinated by that. She leaned forward, studying him, and Dean smiled. He wouldn't realize just how much she looked like Sammy for a long time. A female, older version of Sammy. That was probably why he found her so attractive.**

**And she obviously found him attractive, because he was being sloppily kissed before he could pucker up or even close his eyes.**

**She was the first girl he'd ever kissed, and it was pretty different from being with Sam. With his little brother, it was always soft, warm, a tiny bit sweet. Both in feeling and flavor. And, of course, it was always sober. Kelly's mouth was wet on his, clumsy and hungry, and tasted sour. He was too busy analyzing and figuring out what was going on to kiss back, or to even decide if he wanted to, and Kelly was pulling away soon. She giggled again.**

**"Never been kissed before?" she asked teasingly, slurring the double "s" in "kissed."**

**"I've been..." He lost his train of thought for a moment. "I've been kissed," Dean finally shot back, offended. A rush of guilt that he hadn't felt for years flooded him, as he hoped that he wouldn't accidentally tell her that he'd been kissed by his younger brother. Even drunk, he knew it was wrong.**

**It didn't matter, though, because Kelly ignored him. "If you've never been kissed..." she said, in what she probably thought was a coy way, "...then you've probably never done this, either." They were alone in the room. Sitting next to him, with one bare thigh (she was in Daisy Dukes of a particularly risky length) pressed against his leg, she reached for the front of his jeans and began to fumble with the button.**

**For a second, Dean wasn't quite sure what she was doing, and felt more than a little puzzled. Then it occurred to him: she was trying to take his pants off. He was half-hard in a non-committal way, and he guessed that Kelly had seen that, and...and what? Decided he was "cute" enough to take to bed? Except that they weren't anywhere near a bed. They were on a couch, and she probably planned on doing it there. Something like acid-edged excitement shot through him, and he squirmed, feeling a little queasy.**

**"Nph. Complicated," Kelly muttered, but she looked up at him and smiled, saying, "But you get to deal with my...haha, my bra strap, later, so I guess we're even."**

**"I..." Dean's eyes were fixed on her still-working hands, occasionally focused, occasionally not. He couldn't help thinking about Sammy's hands on him, tugging at his jeans and T-shirt after a really long day at school, wanting close contact and pleasure to soothe both of them. A very large part of him wished that he was still back in the room with his brother.**

**He could hear raindrops beginning to tap on the roof, a mild storm that was quickly picking up steam. The thought of walking home in that made him want to cringe. The thought of Sam going out in it to look for him, convinced that he was in trouble, was unbearable.**

**"Come on, don't you want to?" With intense concentration, Kelly stood up, set her beer down on the coffee table, and just barely managed to straddle his thighs without overbalancing. In that position, she got the button undone quickly, with a cry of triumph. "It looks like you want to..." She tapped his half-mast erection through the thick denim, giggling yet again.**

**Dean had been slouching, but now he put his cup down on the floor and sat up straight, almost dislodging Kelly. She cried out and grabbed onto his hips to stay where she was. He looked up at her hazel eyes and dark hair, and found them a very poor substitute for Sammy's.**

**He really needed to get home.**

**"Warn me 'fore you move next time," Kelly ordered. Her fingers dropped to his zipper, and she began to tug it down, but Dean put a hand over hers.**

**"No." He shook his head with great determination, but stopped when the room began to spin dizzily. "I...I gotta go."**

**"No, no, not yet, we haven't done it yet!" Kelly tried to kiss him again, but missed, hitting the side of his mouth instead of his lips. She didn't seem to care. "C'mon, sweetheart...sweetie...you're so cute. You've got such pretty eyes, and I love your freckles."**

**Looking at Kelly, it slowly dawned on Dean that she was probably only a few years older than he was. She definitely wasn't anywhere near college age, and he wondered if she'd ever done this before.**

**"I can't," he told her firmly. He stood up, stumbling a little, and she sat down on the coffee table, though it was more accidental than deliberate. "I've got somebody. Waitin' for me. I can't."**

**Kelly stared up at him, her mouth slightly open. She reached forward to put a hand on his thigh, running her fingers up the inside of it.**

**"I don't care if you've got a girlfriend," she said bluntly.**

**"Not a girlfriend." Dean pushed her hand off, sick of her touch and ashamed of it, and headed out the door in as straight of a line as he could manage. He bumped into the frame, but all in all, he felt that he did pretty good. "Brother."**

**He never knew if Kelly Whatever-the-hell-her-last-name-was (she'd never told him) ever actually figured it out. She'd been pretty plastered, so maybe she didn't even remember him. Maybe she'd just assumed that he'd meant his brother was waiting for him and needed him. And maybe she'd gotten what he'd actually meant. That he'd given himself to his brother, body and soul, and it would feel way too much like betrayal to let anyone else touch him the way that Sammy had. But he didn't really think about that as he was walking home in the rain. It washed the smell of alcohol off of him, and girl, and did wonders to sober him up. His head was much clearer by the time that he got back to the motel, even if his body was aching with cold.**

**The lights were on in their room, in an unintentional parody of Trent's house, and Dean winced. He quietly unlocked the door and walked in, to find Sammy in his pajamas (sweatpants and one of Dean's old T-shirts) and asleep on the bed. Considering that he was on top of the covers and using one of his folded arms for a pillow, Dean guessed that he hadn't planned on nodding off. He'd wanted to stay up until Dean got home safely. Maybe he'd been worried, maybe some sense of loyalty had driven him to it...maybe he just hadn't wanted to sleep without his big brother. His nightmares got a lot worse when Dean wasn't holding him.**

**As quietly as he could, Dean changed into dry pajamas and scrubbed at his short hair with a towel until it was completely dry. When he was done, he laid down behind Sammy, stroking the curve of his spine. He saw him stir when he woke, but he didn't turn to look at him.**

**"Where were you?" It would've hurt less if Sammy had just rolled over and slammed a knife into his heart. His voice was so quiet, so confused. He didn't even sound like he cared about the answer to the question; he just knew that Dean had gone off and left him, and that that wasn't something that should've happened.**

**"Someplace I shouldn't've been," Dean said honestly, matching Sam's volume. He reached up to stroke his hair. "Almost doing something I would've regretted."**

**Sammy was silent for several seconds, and Dean felt him just barely lean back into his hand. "What was it?"**

**"Almost gave myself to somebody else." And that was what it had been, hadn't it? He'd been afraid of a piece of him being owned by a girl he barely knew - a piece that rightfully belonged to his little brother. He moved back a little when Sam rolled over to face him.**

**"So why didn't you?" The shadows in the room fell in such a way that Dean couldn't quite see Sammy's eyes. But his mouth looked curious. If a mouth even could.**

**"'Cause I'm yours," he replied softly, watching Sammy's face. "And you're mine. And I don't ever want that to change."**

**Sammy stared at him, then made a small noise of comfort and scooted forward, to be held and kissed and touched. He put his hand on Dean's shoulder when he apologized, then pressed his lips to Dean's chin, and told him that he never wanted it to change, either.**

**"'Cause I love you," he said quietly, head tucked snugly under Dean's chin. "I love you more than anybody else, and I don't want you to leave. Never again."**

**"I won't," Dean told him, getting them both under the covers, inch by inch. The lights could stay on tonight. "I love you, too, Sammy. And it's only ever gonna be you, forever. I promise."**


	16. Chapter Sixteen

Elbow resting on one of the many shelves that the molded leather and plastic of the car door made, Sam supported his chin with his hand, staring out the window as the heartland of America flowed past. It was mid-afternoon on the first day of their journey to Pennsylvania, a time of day when the light was warm and seemed eternal. If he closed his eyes and did his absolute best to ignore his size, he could almost believe that he was twelve or thirteen again, nestled in the backseat with Dean while their father drove them to somewhere unknown. The warmth of the sunlight falling on his dark hair, the feel of the leather underneath him, Dean's familiar and almost-sweet scent...it was a near-perfect illusion. Especially when his brother reached over and laid a light hand on his thigh.

Sam let it stay there for a few moments, feeling the thumb rub gently along the outside seam of his jeans, enjoying the casual contact and the weight so much that it sent a razor-sharp bolt of guilt through him. He sighed a little, silently, but moved closer to the door anyway. He had to put an end to this before he started hearing his father's voice in his head and had to curl up in a useless, trembling ball.

"Dean..." he warned, but his voice was soft, no tension at all in it. Dean immediately took his hand off of Sam, flashing him an apologetic look as he placed it back on the wheel.

"Sorry," he said, returning his green-eyed gaze to the road as he sighed quietly through his nose. "I wasn't thinking."

"No," Sam assured, offering half of a smile as he leaned against the window. "Don't worry about it. Really." He would have reached over, grabbed Dean's hand, and dropped it right back onto his thigh, if he'd thought that he could do it without breaking down again. It felt good. To be touched like that - it'd been perfectly chaste, down by his knee, way more about connecting than sex. "Uh..." He decided to change the subject, so that he could stop thinking about Dean's hands. Heavily callused, blunt fingernails, hot and rough against his bare, sensitive skin... "When're we gonna stop?"

"Whenever you want to." Seemingly soothed by Sam's assurance, Dean returned his smile, wide and bright. God, he had full lips. Perfectly soft, too, even though he had to be dehydrated after spending the better part of the day in the car. "And, y'know, whenever we can find a cheap motel that won't give us AIDS just from sleeping on the mattresses."

"Well, you're driving," Sam pointed out. "We can pull off whenever you get tired." Which, if he knew Dean half as well as he thought he did, would be in a couple of hours. Perfect timing, if he wanted to actually call Jess tonight. He felt awful for completely forgetting about her so often, while he was away.

"If you say so." Dean shrugged, as best he could while keeping the car going in a straight line. "Just tell me if you get hungry or something."

Sam doubted he would, since they'd stopped for lunch about an hour after leaving Robbi's house and Dean had coaxed two burgers into him so he'd be able to take about a handful of painkillers (Dean was convinced that riding in the car all day would aggravate his healing wounds). But instead of pointing that out, he just said, "Okay." Dean had two years of overprotectiveness and fussing to make up for, and even though Sam would never admit it even if things were exactly the same between them as they'd been when he was much younger, he sort of enjoyed feeling like someone was taking care of him. Looking out for him.

A therapist would probably home in on that immediately, call it one of the many symptoms of a dangerous and extreme codependence, which in turn was a byproduct of the fact that he'd been _technically_ molested for his entire childhood. But Sam had never gone to see a therapist, and didn't really plan on ever seeking one out. He couldn't be helped unless he went down to the very roots of all his problems, and doing that would get him immediately branded as a paranoid schizophrenic.

Sam and Dean fell into a comfortable silence, Sam lost in his thoughts and Dean...well, he had no idea what he was doing, besides driving. The radio would usually be blaring, but they couldn't get any rock stations out here, and Dean eschewed any and all country. Staticky or not.

Feeling childishly safe, warm, and just the smallest bit sleepy, Sam rested his head against the comfortably sun-heated glass of the window. This, right here, would be absolutely perfect for him if he could just shyly reach over and take Dean's hand. Merge their two separate bubbles into one and satisfy his (misguided, he knew, but he couldn't help it) craving for his brother's touch.

He couldn't, of course. He couldn't risk it, but...he wanted to.

\------------------------------------------------------------------

Two beds, both queen-sized, in one room with an attached bathroom. That was what Dean both asked and paid for at the front desk of the motel whose parking lot they finally pulled into, and Sam had no objections at all. He knew that if Dean had requested a room with only one bed, he would have lost it, and he wouldn't have taken separate rooms very well, either. He needed Dean close, but not having a choice in the matter of sleeping in the same bed with him was a little too much.

The sun was rapidly going down as they carried their bags - Sam's backpack, Dean's duffle - into the room. All the neon in this little tourist trap of a town, full of nothing but cheap restaurants and cheaper sleeping arrangements, was becoming more and more eye-searing with every minute that passed. Sam was glad to close the door and draw the curtains over the one small window.

Dean dumped his duffle on one of the beds in a silent, "Mine." Sam, after some shallow soul-searching, tossed his backpack onto the other mattress. He didn't need Dean's chest pressed to his back or his arms wrapped around him tonight. Not right after going to bed, at least.

"Okay, next order of business," Dean announced, standing up. He planted the heels of his hands in the small of his back and straightened his spine, producing a loud _pop_ and a grimace. The movement made him look like a hardworking housewife, sans apron and curled hair, but Sam kept the observation to himself. Driving all day was tough on a guy's body. Even when he was only twenty-six years old. "Food. What're you hungry for, Sammy?"

The nickname sent mixed feelings bubbling up from somewhere around Sam's stomach. He ignored it, and chose instead to focus on the fact that Dean was handing this decision off to him. Probably as an apology for forcing greasy fast food on him earlier.

"I can go get something," he volunteered. He'd been about to step out of his boots, but now he kept them on. "You can just lay down and watch TV or whatever." He hadn't really liked the sound of that pop.

Dean shook his head, the gesture so firm that Sam knew that there was no point at all in arguing with him further. "Nah," he said. "Just tell me what you want. You've gotta call your girlfriend."

Sam blinked. "Uh...yeah, I guess I do. Thanks for reminding me." He hadn't forgotten. Not really. The knowledge that he had to call and touch base with Jess had been floating in the back of his head, less important than the more pressing matters of shelter and food.

He was surprised that Dean had brought it up, though. And that his voice was always so steady when discussing Jess. If their roles were reversed, Sam would despise her with a passion and go out of his way to avoid bringing her up and to keep Dean away from her. They were _each other's_ and no one else's. At least, that was how he thought Dean felt. Jess was some kind of scheming harlot who'd stolen his soul mate away, and Sam threw her name in his face every single time he felt uncomfortable.

And yet he talked about her so casually. Weird.

"So...?" Dean raised his eyebrows, and Sam realized that he was still waiting for him to give him his order.

"Oh. Uh." He scrambled to get his thoughts in order. "Some kind of wrap. Turkey, if they have it."

For once second, Sam thought that Dean's face was going to go blank and that he would ask him just what the hell a wrap was. He had an eye-roll and an exasperated sigh at the ready, but he never got to use them, since Dean just nodded and stepped out.

"I'll be back soon," he promised, catching the room keys when Sam grabbed them from the bedside table and tossed them over the bed. "Call me if you need anything."

"Sure thing." Kicking off his boots without bothering to unlace them, Sam heard the key rasping in the lock as he plopped down onto the bed he'd claimed. He dug his cell phone out of his pocket and dialed, figuring that Dean had already reached the Impala and it was safe. He didn't want to slip up to Jess, and there was less of a chance of doing that if Dean wasn't around.

"Sam?" The phone rang only once before Jess picked up. Sam swallowed a thick and musty taste of guilt as he wondered if she'd been sitting by it, just waiting for him to call.

"Yeah, it's me," he assured immediately. "How've - " He cut himself off when the door unlocked and swung open, admitting a cautious-looking Dean. He hesitated, just barely inside the room, when he saw that Sam was on the phone. Sam pulled his heavy eyebrows together, silently asking him what was up.

"Sam?" Jess sounded a little concerned. "Are you okay?"

"Oh. Yeah, of course," Sam said hastily. The last thing he wanted to do was make her worry. "Just...hold on for a second." He stood up and spread his free hand to the side, shaking his head in bewilderment at Dean.

"Okay..."

Dean crossed the room in a few quick strides, standing directly in front of Sam and embarrassedly avoiding his eyes. He must've figured that, as long as he was here, he might as well go through with whatever it was he'd come to do. He dug into the pocket of his jacket, unearthing a small white bottle. He shook it in Sam's face, something rattling inside, then dropped it into his hand. One glance at the label was all it took for Sam to understand. They were painkillers. The same kind, mild and non-impairing, that he'd taken at lunch. He distinctly remembered Dean shoving the bottle into his pocket after shaking a few pills out for Sam.

He looked up at his brother, surprised. Dean raised both eyebrows, and mouthed, "Just in case." Sam almost laughed. Dean had honestly come charging back into the motel room just to give him pulls that there was almost no chance he'd need?

Nevertheless, he smiled at Dean, moved by the gesture despite himself as he mouthed, "Thanks."

Dean smiled back, reaching up to give his shoulder a quick, casual squeeze. It was a touch that Sam was perfectly okay with. Before he even knew what he was doing, he'd tilted his head to the side so that his jaw brushed against Dean's strong knuckles, and a happy sigh had slipped out of him.

"Sam?" Now Jess sounded _really_ concerned, and maybe a little afraid, too. "What's going on there?"

Sam jerked away from Dean, throwing the bottle of pills onto the bed behind him and making violent shooing gestures. Let it never be said that Dean Winchester couldn't take a hint. He was out of the room so fast that his passage made the bedspreads flutter. Sam was talking into the phone as soon as he was gone, desperate to fix whatever damage he'd done.

"Just my brother," he quickly assured. Oh, god. It must've sounded to her like he was with another woman - people didn't just randomly make noises like that. It had been a completely instinctive gesture, bred into him by years of leaning into Dean's every single touch with sounds of comfort and enjoyment, but he kicked himself for it anyway. This was exactly the sort of thing he shouldn't be doing. "Don't worry. So. How've things been going?"

Before, Jess had always allowed him to easily change the subject. When they came too close to his family, or his childhood, or his previous relationships, he shied away, and she let him without a word. That was probably why it seemed so strange to Sam when she ignored his efforts and pressed, "What was going on?"

"He brought in some painkillers for me. For my scratches, because he's obsessing over them. We talked."

"That's not what it sounded like." The tension in Jess's voice was climbing, notch by notch, and he couldn't blame her. In her place, he'd be extremely suspicious. "Sam, the last thing I want to do here is turn into the stereotypical crazy girlfriend, but...you've just been acting so _weird_ lately."

Sam sighed. The sound was weary. "I...I know. Jess, I'm so sorry. Things've just been so crazy recently, on the road and looking for my dad and everything..." He didn't want to do this. It was so exhausting to lie to Jess, and painful, because he'd always tried so hard to tell her the truth and so build up a relationship that he could rely on. But the alternative, of course, was too horrible to even consider.

"I can understand that," Jess said. Her voice had softened a little. Maybe she'd heard the sleepiness that Sam couldn't seem to keep out of his own words, brought on by a long day of riding in a warm car. "But...Sam. That doesn't explain everything, and you know it. There's something else going on, and I need you to tell me what it is."

Sam swallowed. It felt like he was forcing down a rock roughly the size of his fist - and he had big hands. "There's nothing else, Jess. I promise."

"Nobody's there with you?" She asked it immediately, but spoke softly. He couldn't tell how she was feeling by listening to her, and wished he could see her face.

"No...Dean went to get dinner," Sam answered. That, at least, was the entire truth. It somehow didn't make him feel any better.

"No...woman?" Jess asked. Her voice was still soft.

"No! No, of course not. I haven't even _looked_ at other girls," Sam assured her. Affection and earnestness flooded his tone. Because this was entirely true, too. He wasn't really interested in women right now. "I promise."

Jess didn't say anything for a long time after that. At first, Sam just figured that she was weighing what he'd said against her own suspicions. Then he started to wonder if their connection had gotten interrupted. But, finally, she spoke again, right before he could hang up and try calling for a second time.

"How are you and Dean doing?" she asked. To Sam, it sounded a little bit cautious. She was probably expecting him to tell her that they were fighting again.

"We're..." He couldn't tell her that they were sleeping in the same bed. That they were touching, casually, to reassure each other that they were still there and still together. That they'd kissed and Sam had liked it - right up until the point where his father's voice had shattered its way into his head. He just wouldn't be able to stand the way that Jess would look at him if she knew the kinds of things he'd grown up doing with his brother. Pity, or disgust, or both...he wasn't sure which one would be the worst. "We're actually doing really well. Things are going good for us." He just wanted to get off this topic as quickly as possible, onto something safer.

"So you made up?" Sam had called her that morning, but she'd been on her way out the door, so the conversation had been quick. As a result, she was a few days behind on what they were doing.

"Yeah. I guess you could say that." Gentle kissing. Sleeping in Dean's arms. A hand casually brushing his hair away from his face, then stilling when he pressed towards the touch. "We're both really happy with where we are." He turned, catching sight of the bottle of painkillers lying on the faded checkerboard bedspread, and felt himself soften. He smiled slightly. "He's...great."

"So you haven't 'hurt' him anymore?" Jess questioned. Sam couldn't put his finger on it, but there was something in her voice as she was asking this things. Almost like she was aiming for some unknown point with her questions. Or maybe he was just being paranoid.

"No." Sam shook his head, even though he knew that Jess would have no idea he was doing so, and felt that slight smile widen. Talking to his girlfriend about Dean, he was suddenly starting to realize just how good he had it with him right now. Maybe they could discuss this for a little while longer. Maybe it'd be okay. "He hasn't given me any reason to. Dean, he - he's gentle with me. He's careful."

"It sounds like you really mean a lot to him," Jess noted. Sam briefly closed his eyes, sitting back down on the edge of the bed.

"I know I do." His voice was soft, his eyes still closed. He was lost - dangerously so. He shouldn't be letting himself sink down into memories of Dean, of loving him, of how the touches of different parts of his body felt. It kinda invited...certain things. "I mean, when I wake up, and I roll over, he's looking at me like...like he could just die right then, and he'd be fine with it. Because I'm there."

He'd said it in a light, happy voice, feeling so much joy (completely detached from the current situation) that it was very nearly painful. But in a good way. Thinking about waking up next to Dean, like he had for the last couple of days, it took him a few seconds and a quiet sound from Jess to realize exactly what he'd said.

Sam's lower teeth locked to his upper ones with an audible _click_ , and he clapped a hand over his mouth. He knew it was nothing but useless - the damage had already been done. He knew it was childish. Being around Dean must be making him regress.

All the blood seemed to have drained out of his head, he suddenly realized. He was pale and cold and close to reeling because he'd screwed up _so badly_. He'd ruined everything and laid himself bare.

_When I wake up, and I roll over, he's looking at me..._

No, no, oh, god, no. He couldn't have. Stupid, stupid, _stupid..._

All Sam could do now, though, was squeeze his eyes shut, hold his breath, and wait for Jess to hang up or speak.

She did the second one. Eventually.

"Sam...what did you say?"

She just sounded so _cautious_. Sam guessed that she desperately wanted him to correct himself, and tell her that she hadn't heard what she thought she had. He wasn't a twenty-two-year-old man who slept with his older brother every night.

"It - uh," Sam stammered. His mouth, for some reason, simply refused to work. His tongue seemed to have swollen to twice its normal size, making every word sound strange and awkward even to him. "W-we sleep in one motel room. To save money. There's - there're two beds, so we're right across from each other. That's what I meant."

He could hear soft, wet sounds on the other end of the line, barely audible. Jess was chewing and sucking on her lower lip. Sam just listened to that for a couple of seconds. He desperately hoped that it was a good sign, and that it meant she was going to believe him and move on.

"When did you guys start sleeping in the same bed?" Sam's hope died. He was pretty sure he started shaking again when she asked that, was furious at himself. The same guy who'd one faced down a basilisk without blinking (well...figuratively) shouldn't tremble at the prospect of admitting that he'd committed incest.

He was going to tell her all about it, he suddenly realized, thoughts wild and almost giddy. There was something Freudian there. Some part of him had always wanted to admit it - either to Jess or somebody else. He wanted to expose it. He wanted somebody else to know about it. If she reacted with disgust...the way that he'd acted for the last two years would be completely justified. He could go back to that. It'd be easy and safe and, soon, he could go home to her and forget all about it forever. Pretend that he'd been born an only child.

Maybe there was another reason. Maybe he wanted her to tell him that what they had was beautiful, so that when Dean came back, he could kiss him and lean against him and silently beg for the attention he'd been craving since he left him that first time.

"We did it all the time when we were little," he managed. "We moved around a lot. We had to." He could remember their father leaving them alone in a two-bed motel room a million times. They always chose to only use one bed and leave the other alone. They only needed one.

"How long did that go on?" Sam tried to hear something in her voice that would tell him what she was thinking about what was probably dawning on her even as they spoke. Horror or anger or something. But she just sounded quiet again.

"Uh." Sam sighed deeply, reaching up to massage his eyes with his free hand. "A pretty long time." What else could he say?

A couple of rapid heartbeats passed, then Jess began, "All those scars on you - "

"Those aren't from Dean," Sam said instantly, interrupting her. He said it firmly, because it was important that she understand he hadn't been hurt. "He was never abusive. The only time I ever remember him hitting me on purpose, it didn't even leave a bruise." Training and sparring didn't count. "And you know he didn't...do anything else." Jess had seen him naked every day for a year. As a nursing student, she would've immediately picked up on scarring around his entrance, and demanded to know who had violated him brutally enough to hurt him like that. "He loved me. Loves me. Like, really - it's not some kind of fucked-up, pedophilic adoration that would give Nabokov a wet dream." He paused for breath, wondered if Jess would get the reference. It didn't really matter if she didn't.

Jess's voice was totally calm as he asked, "Then what _did_ he do?" Sam could imagine that same voice, tone and all, someday asking an ER patient, "Just how did this get bitten off?"

"Nothing I didn't want," Sam admitted miserably. The situation had slipped out of his control. There was no use trying to deny the horrible thing anymore. "We were so little. We didn't know." He closed his eyes and sucked in a breath so deep that it made his lungs sting. He crushed the inevitable urge to cough. "It was all about proving how we felt, staying close to each other. We didn't know what it was." He paused. "By the time we realized what we were doing, it was too late. It'd gone too far, and we meant too much to each other."

"But...you didn't take him with you when you came to Stanford," Jess said softly.

"Our dad finally caught us." The words came out harsh and rough. They were painful to say, because he was terrified that mentioning the man would bring his invisible wrath crashing down on his head. "He screamed at me, but I don't think Dean ever found out that he knew. Maybe he suspected, because touching him made me sick after that. Furious. I blamed him. And then I left."

There. He'd gotten it all out. Most of it, anyway.

"We haven't done anything since he came for me," Sam told Jess, voice barely even a whisper. Embarrassed, guilty tears stung at the backs of his eyes. "I couldn't. I'm not ready, I might never be, and - there's you. But it's tough for me to sleep without him, sometimes. And we kissed. Once, and then I told him we couldn't do that." He dropped his free hand to his thigh, and squeezed hard enough to leave deep, dark bruises. "I - I need him, Jess. He's pretty much all I ever had, for my whole life." He couldn't believe he'd made it this far without an internal outburst. Just in case one was about to hit him, he quickly added, "It's not even sexual right now. It's...something else. I don't know what."

And he was done. He'd come clean, spilled his guts. His poor girlfriend now knew that she'd taken up with a guy who was in love with his brother and had willingly given his virginity to him. She knew he'd lied when he told her, very firmly, that he was straight as an arrow. She knew he was a freak, for both what he'd done and what he wanted. He waited, but she didn't respond to any of it.

"Jess?" His voice sounded so small to his own ears. As if he were ten years younger. But it failed to coax an answer out of the woman on the other end of the line.

"Please. Say something." A pleading note had wormed its way into what he was saying. He didn't care, as Jess still didn't reply.

"I...don't do this..." He heard nothing but silence, and the faint buzzing brought on by distance.

Sam waited for a few moments before speaking again. This time, he didn't consider the fact that the call might have been dropped. "Jess, just say something! Anything! I don't care what!" Still nothing. "Didn't you hear any of what I said? Dean and I kissed. When he says he loves me, he doesn't mean it in a brotherly way. More times than I can count, I stripped down, crawled into bed, and _had sex_ with my older broth - "

"I know." The interruption, quiet as it was, cut him off mid-rant. He realized he'd been yelling into the phone. Despite the fact that Jess had finally spoken, that half-hysterical anger didn't dissipate.

"Of course you know! I just told you so loud that the whole motel probably - "

"No, Sam. I mean, _I know_ ," Jess interrupted again, this time putting special emphasis on the last two words. "I have for awhile."

Sam's brain couldn't quite keep up with his ears, all of a sudden. "...what?"

"Well...maybe I've just suspected," Jess admitted, as if he hadn't spoken. "Since a couple days after you left, at least."

"How?" His mouth was so dry it hurt. He wanted to get up, head into the bathroom, and chug about ten Dixie cups full of water, but he had to stay here. He had to learn how all his precautions had failed. He thought he'd been so _careful_...

"I don't think you're capable of hiding it," Jess told him bluntly, but there was no hostility in her voice. "At least, not when you're around Dean. Everything you said, I could hear how you felt about him. And...from the way you acted, I...wondered."

"But I didn't - " Sam began, protesting. Jess cut him off yet again.

"I know what one of your erections looks like, Sam," she said dryly. "And, from what you've told me, I don't think that that was morning wood on the night that Dean broke into our apartment."

Sam blushed, his cheekbones going what he knew would be a bright shade of stop sign red. He instinctively hunched his shoulders in embarrassment. "...oh." He hoped that Dean wouldn't come back anytime soon. Actually, he'd probably only been gone for about ten minutes, even though it felt like it'd been hours to Sam.

He screwed up his courage as his blush started to fade, and asked, "So. What now?"

Jess probably considered for a few seconds. "Is your dad really missing?"

"Yes!" He probably sounded indignant, but he didn't mind. Did she really think that he and Dean had just come up with a stupid excuse to run off together? He would've thought that she knew him better than that.

"Then you should stay with your brother until you find him," she told him, and, finally, he heard something in her voice. Gentleness, kindness. And...grief. Well-hidden, but definitely there; he could hear it in the slight trembling that had suddenly started up. "And then..." She hesitated before continuing, taking in a deep breath that shuddered just a little at the end. "I think that you should stay with him afterwards, too. Whether you come back to school or you go and do something else, I don't think it'd be good for you two to be apart again."

When Sam found himself unable to respond immediately, Jess went on. "This...goes against pretty much everything I've been taught. I mean, this is incest, and you were technically raped, in the statutory sense, and...and I love you." He was sure that her voice broke a little there. "I don't want to tell you to leave me so that you can go and be with somebody else. But - "

"But you can't stand me, now that you know what Dean and I did," Sam interrupted emotionlessly. It felt as if there were a fist buried in his organs, twisting and pulling and digging.

"But I can't stand tearing you away from Dean," Jess contradicted him firmly. He heard a sniff. Very quiet, like she was trying to muffle it so that he wouldn't hear. "That's why I'm not ordering you back here and making an appointment with a therapist. He loves you, and you love him. More than you're ever going to be able to love me. And I don't think that this is some weird type of Stockholm syndrome or anything. You said he didn't hurt you..."

"He'd've killed himself if he had. Dad drummed it into him that he had to take care of me."

"Oh. Um." Jess was polite enough not to remark, "Well, that explains a lot." Sam was grateful for it. He was also grateful for her swift recovery after the interruption. "And you said he gave you stitches." She laughed, a little shakily. "So he can take care of you just as well as I can."

"Jess..." Sam began softly. The hand had moved up, out of his guts, and was now wrapped cruelly around his heart.

She had known, she said. For awhile. She must have been thinking about this, realizing that she may have to tell him this. She must have figured out what she had to do, and now she was putting it into action. Jess had always been the type that planned ahead, even for things that might not happen.

"Sam, I really...I really think that this is the best thing for you," she replied, when he didn't continue. There was a tremor in her voice - the kind that hid tears that she didn't want to allow to fall. "I want you to cal me if anything major happens. And I want you to come and see me, if you ever come back here. But I don't want to be your girlfriend anymore."

Sam closed his eyes. Some part of him wanted to believe that she just couldn't bring herself to lay hands on him now that she knew his brother had touched him in the exact same places. It would be simple, and like he'd thought earlier, it would let him withdraw from Dean again, sink into guilt and self-loathing. But he couldn't quite do that. Not with all the kindness and sincerity in her voice. Maybe the disgust was a part of it - but a minuscule part, completely eclipsed by all the other reasons she'd given him.

"I have no idea what I ever did to deserve you," he told her, voice raw. He could hear the fragile smile in her voice when she answered him.

"This last year has been amazing, Sam," she answered. He heard a tiny, wounded sound that was almost a sob, but didn't comment on it. She probably hadn't meant to let him pick up on it. "Please believe me when I say that you were probably the best boyfriend I ever had. I'm going to miss you."

"I love you," Sam said, conviction so strong in his voice that the words almost didn't make their way out of his throat.

"I know you do," Jess assured gently, before another sniff. "You love Dean a lot more, though. And I can't ask you to choose between me and him."

Sam couldn't remember anyone ever making such a selfless gesture for him. He wished that Jess was right here with him, so that he could hold her one last time and pull her into a goodbye kiss. Do this thing right, because breaking up over the phone was so...impersonal. He tried to imagine her. But her round breasts kept turning to Dean's hard, flat pectorals underneath his mental hands, and her long blonde hair kept shortening and darkening to Dean's brush cut.

"Jess, if anybody asks about me - " he started, seized suddenly by a raw and deep-rooted terror.

"How about I just tell them that you went on a road trip with your brother?" Jess suggested, and her trustworthiness just about sent Sam reeling. When he agreed, gratefully, they just sat in silence for a few minutes. Finally, voice almost dreamy (but still thick with unshed tears), Jess said, "One of your friends came by the other day."

"Which one?" Sam asked automatically, because he felt like he should. He wasn't sure how to end the conversation gracefully, and wasn't really sure that he wanted to. Not yet.

"This is going to sound terrible, but I don't remember his name. The...pre-med one, I think." She paused, in order to swallow. "He didn't say much. I knocked the saltshaker off the counter right before he came, by accident, and he took off as soon as he saw the mess. He must be OCD or something."

As far as Sam knew, none of his close friends had OCD. The disorder - especially of the magnitude that Jess had described - was difficult to hide. But he didn't contradict her, just saying, "If he comes back, tell him I said 'hi.'"

"Okay." Another pause. "I love you, Sam." She took a deep breath. It shook so much that Sam felt sick. "Goodbye."

"'Bye, Jess."

He heard the click that signified she'd hung up, but kept the phone with its dead line pressed against his ear for a long time anyway. It wasn't easy to just let Jess go. She'd been the center of his world, after all, for the majority of the time that he'd spent at Stanford. Probably...because he'd dragged her into that position, pouring all of his focus that wasn't taken up by schoolwork into her in an effort not to remember Dean. But that didn't change the fact that he really had felt something for her, or that losing her hurt.

Finally, Sam pressed the "end call" button, with its red silhouette of a phone. After neatly placing his cell on the bedside table, he stretched out on the bed. Eyes closed, he made movements so tiny and slow that he could barely even feel them, until he was curled up on his side with his fists tucked under his chin. He heard the door open only minutes after he'd gotten himself settled.

"Okay, I really hope you're hungry, 'cause the only size of wrap they had was - " Dean had started talking, loud and amiable, before he'd even gotten the door all the way open. But he abruptly cut himself off when he, presumably, caught sight of Sam. "...Sammy? Hey, you okay?"

Sam heard bags being gently set on the counter of the room's kitchenette, then bootsteps slowly approaching him. He let out a long, soft sigh when, very hesitantly, Dean touched the ridge of his spine and asked, "What's wrong?"

"Jess and I broke up," he replied dully, eyes opening a slit.

There was silence for awhile. Dean didn't pull his hand away, but he didn't start stroking him or spread a hand, palm-flat, against his back, either. There wasn't any excitement or relief at all in his voice as he quietly said, "That's...really rough, man. I'm sorry."

He didn't seem to have anything to add to that. He just coaxed some food into Sam, talked him out of his clothes and into what passed for pajamas, and then made sure that he got under the covers all right before going to bed himself.

"You gonna be all right?" Dean asked, sitting on the edge of the other bed. Sam nodded, staring up at the ceiling with the sheets and blankets lying heavily on top of him.

"Yeah. I...I'm feeling better, now that some time's passed." He turned his head to the side, looking at his older brother. "It was just...unexpected, y'know?"

Dean held his gaze for a couple of seconds, then glanced away as he sighed heavily through his nose. "Yep. I do."

He flicked off the lights. Sam heard the springs of the other mattress creaking and groaning and then Dean's slow, steady breathing filled the room. Sam lasted, alone in his bed, for about ten minutes.

He slipped out from under the covers and sat up, swinging his legs out over the edge of the bed in order to stand. Padding over to Dean's side of the room, he lifted the sheets, and silently climbed under them. They were warm from his brother's body, and they already smelled like him. Sam couldn't imagine a greater comfort, or a better sanctuary. He pressed himself against Dean's back, waited for him to roll over, and then turned when he did, so they were spooning. Apparently, he actually did need Dean at his back tonight, protecting him. But he waited until a hand had been tentatively placed on his shoulder to relax completely.

"We can just ask for one king-sized bed from now on," Sam whispered into his pillow.

"You sure?" Dean's chest filled and emptied rhythmically, his sternum aligned with Sam's spine.

"Yes." Sam paused. "Uh. Maybe. Well...talk to me before you do."

"I can live with that," Dean said softly, rubbing a thumb over Sam's shoulder blade. "Now, try and get some shuteye. It's been a long day for you."

As Dean's breath ruffled the hair on the back of his head, Sam waited for his father's furious, sickened voice to erupt inside of his head. Force him, shaking, back to his own bed.

But he fell asleep long before it did.


	17. Chapter Seventeen

As it turned out, it took a long freaking time to drive from Texas to Pennsylvania.

And, as it turned out, Dean didn't mind in the slightest.

It was time that he got to spend with Sam, not doing anything but riding in a car, breathing the fresh air, and enjoying the sunshine. A version of Sam that no longer had any real obligation to the girlfriend he'd left back in California, because they had just broken up. He'd been dropped right back into the bright, warm golden age of his life, when he was in his early twenties and Sam was in his late teens, and everything had been perfect.

Okay. Maybe it wasn't exactly like it had been then, and Dean was smart enough to realize that it probably never would be. But it was pretty damn close.

This version of Sam had gone right back to being a shameless cuddler, just as soon as he was sure that snuggling up to Dean wasn't cheating on Jess. Not anymore, at least. He'd spent last night with his back pressed right up against Dean's chest, not objecting in the slightest to the arm that had been first draped over, then wrapped around him. Something had happened to him around midnight; he'd begun to writhe and grunt softly, uncomfortable and obviously afraid. Dean, figuring that he was having a nightmare, just held him a little more tightly. That seemed to do the trick, since the whole thing passed pretty quickly.

When Sam woke up (about an hour after Dean had come to, and decided to stay where he was because Sam probably needed as much sleep as he could get after all the stress of last night), he'd turned in Dean's arms so that his face was pressed to his pecs. He didn't say anything when Dean pressed a tentative good-morning kiss to the spot right between his heavy eyebrows, or pull away. He just smiled slowly, blinked up at him with sleepy hazel eyes, and suggested that they get going.

Dean took his bandages off, and decided that they could try keeping them off today, when he saw the way that the new, pink skin had gone shiny and flat. The cuts were finally turning into scars. He guessed they no longer needed antiseptic cream on them, either.

"I'll take the stitches out tomorrow or the day after," he said. He was leaning over Sam where he was sitting on the toilet, so his breath ruffled his hair. Sam looked up at him.

"You sure?" he asked, eyebrows drawing together in very mild concern. "I was sure that you'd wanna coddle me for at least another week."

Dean rolled his eyes, dropping the strips and pads of gauze into the motel bathroom's small trash can. "Couldn't get away with it," he told him, though, shaking his head. "You heal too damn fast." He straightened up, and patted Sam on one of his stitched-up shoulders, noting with approval that it didn't even get the smallest flinch out of him. "I'm gonna go grab breakfast - you take a shower."

"See if they've got whole-wheat pancakes," Sam told him, straightening up and hooking his thumbs under the elastic waistband of his sweatpants, shucking them easily off. He'd worn them last night, even though Dean had thought that it was just about hot enough to sleep buck naked. He'd probably wanted the extra security that they afforded.

"How 'bout I just tell the cook to pan-fry some gravel?" Dean asked, with a smirk and a "you're-completely-hopeless" shake of his head. He was leaning against the small block of counter in the bathroom, arms folded across his chest and eyes fixed on Sam's bare torso and legs.

He wasn't leering. He didn't want to bring Sam's skittishness right back to the surface, when breaking up with his girlfriend had hid it away so expertly, and besides. He'd never thought of Sam's body as something to drool over. He liked large breasts on women, shallowly-defined abs on men, he'd been to strip clubs, and bars that intentionally got their more attractive patrons drunk and excited, and, once, a brothel (though he hadn't been asked to pay when he was done). He knew what pure lust felt like. He knew what it was to pant and get hard and be absolutely desperate to wreck the sex god in front of him. Sam just didn't fall into that category. There was more to him than just _sex_ \- Dean enjoyed looking at him, sure, but...it was the way he enjoyed a clear sky at midnight. A rainstorm when he was under a roof that didn't leak too much. A good, fresh breeze. He reacted to those dusky nipples and that wisp of chest hair with something deeper than his cock.

"When you wake up after they put your first stent in," Sam said dryly, beginning to tug down the dark cotton of his boxer-briefs, "the first thing you're gonna hear is me saying 'I told you so.'"

Dean didn't ask what a stent was. He could steal Sam's laptop and Google it later - preferably after they'd reached tonight's destination. He shrugged and said, "Fine, Sammy, I'll get your weird pancakes. But I'm bringing back bacon with them." Not that Sam was starving. His back, chest, and arms were all rippling with new, lean muscle that he must have put on at Stanford. Dean liked it; it made him look more like a man than a boy.

"Fine. I can compromise." Sam's boxers were halfway down his hips (he'd gotten distracted by an itch on this thigh). He reached for them again but, suddenly, one of his hands clenched into a fist tight enough to force all of the blood out of the skin over his knuckles. Dean saw him swallow hard as every muscle in his body tensed, a panicked, guilty look flooding his eyes. It was familiar.

"I'll be back." Dean turned and hurriedly left the bathroom, then the motel room, firmly closing both doors behind him. He had no idea why Sam had these episodes; maybe all those blows to the head had come back to haunt him. Maybe they were seizures...but he knew that the two of them had to be separated while he worked through it. Just like when this had happened while they were kissing on top of Dean's bed. He felt a little flash of disappointment, as he fired up the Impala and headed for the small restaurant that he'd picked up dinner at: he'd hoped that Sam's minor breakdowns would disappear, with Jess out of the picture.

His feelings about the breakup were...complicated. Was he completely over the moon because the guy he'd sworn monogamy to was pretty much his for the taking again? Oh, hell, yes, he was. He was human, after all, and he couldn't function at his highest levels without Sam. But...Sam had seemed extremely attached to this girl, and she'd appeared devoted to him, at the very least. Losing her had hurt him. Probably not as bad as losing Sam had hurt Dean, two years ago, but that didn't mean that the pain wasn't going to keep bubbling up for days, weeks, months. That put a damper on Dean's happiness. That Sam had been wounded in a way he couldn't quite fix.

He pulled into the parking lot, patting his pocket to make sure that he had his wallet before getting out of the car. He always made an effort to pay in cash at restaurants, since it might strike someone as a little strange if he used a credit card to pick up a tab that was under twenty dollars. People did it, he was sure, but not in a town as small and rural as this.

Dean had no real idea what had caused Jess to dump Sam, since Sam hadn't told him and he hadn't asked. The catalyst didn't matter all that much to him. Though he couldn't help wondering if Sam hadn't really been able to please her, because she was a woman, or she hadn't been able to please him, for exactly the same reason. Sam had never shown much interest in girls. But, then again, if Dean was honest, he'd never shown much interest in guys, either. Just him.

Sam's sexuality, and the sex he had with people who were not Dean, were total mysteries to him. He'd tried to puzzle it out once, but...they'd kinda gotten distracted.

**Early October, 1995**

The high school let out at two-thirty, on the dot. The middle school let out at three-twenty-five. This was something that'd pleased Dean when they first rolled into Grisdale (witch case, maybe a skinwalker, according to Dad) and enrolled, and it delighted him now. Getting back to the motel room almost an hour before Sammy did meant that he could get the heater going on colder days, get their bed set up with all the room's extra pillows, and put out a snack for his younger brother. That was usually cookies from a package and a little pint carton of milk that he'd picked up at the closest convenience store. A couple of times, it'd occurred to him that, maybe, he should use the time for tunneling through the mountains of homework that seemed be defining his junior year so far instead, but he'd all but given up on homework by now. High Ds would let him pass, and he could get those by just doing the work that they got in class.

A small pile of Oreos had been poured out onto a paper plate. The milk, still satisfyingly cold, was settled next to it. The covers of the bed that Sammy had flopped onto when they'd first walked into the room were pulled taut, and there was a drift of small, flat pillows near its headboard. An icy rain was falling outside, whipped against the bricks of the motel by a biting wind, so a comforting hum was coming from the rusty heater. Completely satisfied with his work, Dean kicked off his boots without unlacing them, and fell back onto the bed with a contented sigh. He laced his fingers together behind his head, turning it so that he could look at the digital clock on the nightstand between the two beds. Three-forty. Sammy had to be coming home soon. Dean would go and get him, but there was a silent agreement between them that Sam would rather have a warm, friendly, almost homey motel room waiting for him when he got out of school than his brother walking him the quarter mile to this place. Besides. They walked together in the morning.

Sammy got in at three-forty-seven, right after Dean started to worry. He nudged the door behind him closed with one sneakered foot, then let his backpack drop to the ground, raining running in rivulets off of the oversized jacket that Dad had dug out of a bin at Goodwill. The hood cast his face into complete shadow, but he reached up and flipped it back when Dean stood up and strode over to him.

"Hey, there, Sammy," Dean greeted with a smile, dropping into a crouch in order to help Sam out of the wet, rubberized jacket. Twelve was probably too old for this, but Sam had yet to complain about it. He turned, shrugging out of the jacket, then slipped his shoes off and padded after Dean as he draped the jacket over the back of a flimsy chair to dry. "How was school?"

"Fine, I guess." Sammy's jeans had been splashed dark by rainwater, but the rest of him was dry. Including his wavy mop of brunette hair, which Dean tenderly ruffled when he wandered over to lean up against him. For a few months after the incident three years ago, Sammy had been almost unbearably clingy, but then he'd gone back to normal. Not much had changed since then. Sammy still wanted to be touched and kissed, reassured as often as possible that Dean loved him most of all. Dean was only too happy to give in to that desire.

"What's wrong?" Dean could only be closer to Sam if they'd been born Siamese twins, and it hadn't taken much for him to hear a faint note of uneasiness in his voice. As he climbed into another chair and reached for the cookies, Dean sat down next to him, responding to the way that he unconsciously leaned towards him by putting a hand on his shoulder. "You get a B-plus on a test instead of an A?" Sammy had actually been broken up over that, once. Dean had just barely managed to hold back his incredulous laughter until after he'd finished comforting him.

"C'mon, Dean, I don't get upset over stuff like that anymore," Sammy complained, twisting an Oreo apart. Dean smirked.

"Sure you don't." He watched Sammy suck the cream off of the chocolate cookies, then pop both of them into his mouth. He was weird with Oreos. Dean preferred to eat the whole thing all at once - it preserved the structural integrity of the cookie.

"I don't!" Sammy protested. He graciously allowed Dean to steal an Oreo, but he could tell that he wasn't paying attention to his silent demonstration of the correct way to eat them. "But, no. It's not that. It's...kinda stupid, actually."

Dean snorted. "It's not stupid. I don't even know what it is, and I know it's not. It wouldn't be bugging you so much if it were stupid." Only Sammy's deepest concerns ever made it past the seemingly-magical threshold of their motel room. The rest were all driven away by the promise of warmth, sugar, and intimate time with Dean. Their lives might be crappy, but together, after school, things were pretty okay. "C'mon. Tell me."

Sam hesitated, swallowing what was in his mouth. "I have this girl in a couple of my classes, and she treats me kinda weird."

Dean's protective instinct flared right up, the second that he heard that. "Is she bullying you?" He'd been quick to jump to his younger brother's defense, ever since Sammy was in kindergarten. Sammy shook his head, though.

"No. No, it's not like that, Dean. Don't freak out," he admonished. Dean felt himself relax incrementally. Later in his life, he'd be slightly bothered by the fact that Sammy pretty much had him on a leash, but he was unaware of it right now. "It's...different. She just talks to me all the time, and always wants to be my partner and stuff. And she, uh, loves my hair. That's what she said today." He looked vaguely embarrassed by that.

"What's her name?" Dean asked calmly, even though it felt like he'd swallowed a fistful of sleeping worms and they'd just woken up. He thought he knew why, but didn't want to dwell on it.

"Jessica."

(Ten years later, the pure, undiluted irony of that was most definitely not lost on Dean. He smirked a little as he carried a Styrofoam box of whole wheat pancakes and bacon back to the car.)

"Well, is she pretty?" Dean had been about to say "hot" instead of "pretty," before realizing that there was probably something wrong if a twelve-year-old girl could be described as "hot." He took a second Oreo, and Sammy didn't object.

"I don't know." He shrugged, and made a little bit of a face. He licked the cream off of another Oreo. "Sometime, I want real cookies. Like, fresh cookies."

"Well, you can make some the next time we stay out at Uncle Bobby's house," Dean said (the "uncle" still slipped out sometimes). He couldn't care less about cookies. He wanted to hear about this girl of Sammy's.

Sammy was uncooperative. "Nah, I want you to make them." He popped open the carton of milk with expert little fingers. "You're a lot better at cooking."

"That's baking," Dean said automatically. There was a difference between the two, and people who weren't aware of it were one of his pet peeves. Sammy got a free pass, though, for obvious reasons. "Anyway. This Jessica girl. She...loves your hair?"

"That's what she said." Sammy squirmed, and took a big gulp of milk to try and cover it up. "I dunno. She makes me feel weird."

The worms were getting a lot more active now. "D'you mean that you like her?" The words were somehow hard to get out.

"She's okay." Sam had apparently eaten and drunk his fill. He pushed away from the table and went to climb up onto the bed. Dean ate the two cookies that were left and knocked back the remainder of the milk, because things were sort of tough right now and Dad had told them not to waste food.

"No, Sammy, I mean..." He tossed the leftover cardboard of the carton and the plate into the small trash can. "...d'you _like_ her."

Sammy blinked up at him with big, full-lashed hazel eyes. Dean lifted a knee, planting it on the mattress and easily hoisting himself up. He collapsed aganst the pillows, right next to where Sammy was laying, and waited for an answer. There was no way that he wouldn't know what the expression meant.

"I...guess?" The worms in Dean's stomach tangled together in a huge, squirming ball. "Or - no. I don't know. I've never _liked_ anybody before." He copied Dean's inflection perfectly, then shrugged, looking a little bit embarrassed by his lack of experience.

"Well, uh..." This was not a conversation that Dean wanted to have. He'd rather have Sammy snuggle up against him and tell him about his day - sans Jessica. They could talk about much safer topics that way. "D'you like talking to her? D'you...I don't know, look forward to being around her all the time?" Dean had had crushes before, but they'd all been shallow and pretty brief. He should've paid more attention. "Do you like the way she looks and acts and sounds and all that stuff?"

Sammy, on his back but propped up by pillows, was silent for a few moments. He tipped his head back, his teeth (almost all of them permanent by now) worrying slowly at his lower lip. Finally, he turned to look at Dean, reaching over to lay a small hand on the side of his chest.

"That's pretty much how I feel about _you_ ," he said plainly. Dean's worms stopped moving.

"Anybody else?" he asked. Sammy shook his head, smiling a little. "Nobody? No girls?" Something suddenly occurred to him, and he tentatively asked, "No other guys?"

Sammy had been raised exclusively by men. Dad, Bobby, Caleb, Pastor Jim, Dean himself. Even though he'd never said anything, Dean suspected that he hadn't been aware of male-female relationships until right before kindergarten. He definitely hadn't known why they were needed until a couple years ago, when he'd had his first sex-ed class. Or why same-sex relationships were frowned upon, when he entered middle school. He might not have any interest at all in girls.

But Sammy just shook his head again. After a couple of seconds, his eyebrows drew together, and he asked, "Is that weird?"

Dean smirked, then rolled over, gathering Sammy into his arms. His younger brother squeaked - probably because Dean was half laying on top of him. At twelve, Sam was still extremely small for his age, tiny and fragile with most of his weight (probably) coming from his hair. In other words, he was still the perfect size to be held, much to Dean's delight.

"Nah, that's not weird," he assured him, once Sammy had stopped squirming and started cuddling. "I don't like anybody else, either." He moved back a little, rolling onto his back so that he wouldn't accidentally crush him. Their positions were instantly reversed when Sammy scrambled on top of him, spreading out like a melting puddle of ice cream. He rested his chin on top of Dean's, looking right at him.

"Promise?" he pressed, eyes fluttering closed in pleasure when Dean reached up and scratched his scalp with rounded fingernails.

"Yeah, Sammy, I promise." Dean raised his head in order to peck Sam on the mouth, and felt pure bliss spread through him. Would-be problem totally averted.

Though...it might be a good idea to figure out Sammy's sexuality, since the subject had sort of come up and all. Dean knew that he himself was attracted to both sexes, and he was comfortable with it, even if he did present himself as perfectly straight so that he wouldn't get teased. Being aware of exactly what Sammy liked could prevent a lot of other would-be problems from cropping up in the future.

"Do you like boys or girls?" The blunt approach was probably best here. Or maybe school had just worn him out too much to play games.

Sammy's eyes opened a slit, and he frowned down at him. "I like you, De." His tone was a little exasperated. Probably because he thought they'd already had this conversation.

"Yeah, but I'm a guy," Dean said. Like Sammy hadn't figured that out. That was right up there with the fact that Dean was his brother, and that no one could catch them doing some of the things that they did together. "Say I was a girl." Ew. The thought made his skin crawl; he was perfectly happy with being a dude. "Would you still like me?"

"Sure." Sammy moved down the length of Dean's body, resting his head on his collarbone. His breathing started to even out, and Dean knew that he was shutting himself down for the day. He was done talking; he just wanted to snuggle, spend time with his big brother.

"No, Sammy, _think_ about it," Dean urged. He felt Sam stir, and he looked a little irritated when he raised his head.

"Are girls, like, really different from boys? Or something?" he asked, shaking his hair out of his eyes.

"Yeah," Dean said, even though he'd never really been close enough to the nether regions of a girl to tell for sure.

"Okay, so..." Sammy sat up, straddling Dean's hips. Dean automatically tensed his stomach when he planted the heels of his hands on it, and laced his fingers behind his head again as Sammy stared down at him. "If you were a girl." He swallowed, then cocked his head to the side, curious but also a little afraid. "How would stuff between us be different?"

Dean sat up, too. Slowly. The movement sent Sammy sliding into his lap as he drew his legs up and folded them, but he didn't seem to mind. He placed his hands on Sam's narrow hips, his thumbs resting on the button of his jeans, and said, "Lemme show you."

His voice came out low and husky, and he could feel himself stir and throb in his well-worn boxers as he deftly undid Sammy's button. His little brother sucked in a deep breath, closed his eyes, bit his lower lip again, and tentatively reached up to grab onto Dean's shoulders. Sammy's hips shifted against his calves, an eager little mewl rolling out of him. Anymore, when they did this kind of thing, he was breathlessly excited for it. Dean guessed that that was because he was getting older, better able to appreciate it. But, of course, he still collapsed against him when they were done, making soft sounds and looking up at him with adoring eyes, because he was Sammy.

Dean tugged Sam's zipper down, and smiled a little when he bucked up to help him with it. Nine years of this had left each of them with a near-perfect understanding of how the other worked, and Sammy scrambled backwards when Dean shifted a little, shimmying his jeans and boxers down in front until his erection popped out. He was still small there, just like everywhere else, and hairless. Dean was wildly different. The first time that Sammy had noticed that, it'd led to an hours-long discussion. Dean hadn't really minded.

Sammy was kneeling in front of him, hands twisting in the rumbled fabric of his loose jeans as Dean stretched out on his stomach and propped himself up on his elbows. His mouth was level with Sam's tiny cock.

"What're you gonna do, De?" Sammy's voice was barely above a whisper, trembling with confusion and excitement. Dean crossed his forearms and grinned up at him.

"Worried I'm gonna bite it off?" he teased. Sammy scowled and shook his head.

"No...it's just...you usually use your hands." he bit his lower lip again. "D'girls use their...mouths?"

"Sometimes." He decided not to mention that guys did it sometimes, too, to other guys. In the last town that they'd been in, he'd punched a kid out for saying that he had cocksucker lips (he'd gotten suspended, but they'd left before his time was up). Looked like the little bastard had been right, though. He licked Sammy's tip, tasting salt and bitterness and some warm, animal flavor that matched the scent of semen. Sammy shivered.

"You don't have to," he told him, in a ragged gasp. "You don't have to put it in your mouth - that's kinda gross."

"It'll feel good," Dean promised softly, reaching up to stroke Sammy's thigh. He licked him again, a wet, luscious one, and swore that he actually felt him twitch against his tongue. Yeah, he guessed it was a little gross, when you thought about it. But it was sex. All sex was pretty disgusting until you got used to it. "Tell me to stop if you don't like it." He wasn't too confident in his own skills, since he'd only ever seen a blowjob performed once - a porn tape that a "friend" had shown him. And that woman had been a professional.

No use laying there and stressing over it. He wrapped his lips around Sammy's head, and tasted his thin, bitter precome as it bubbled out. The older he got, the more complex his orgasms seemed to be. Dean sucked gently, licked, mouthed, and smiled around Sam with every high-pitched noise of pleasure that he made. He was careful with his teeth, and so far, Sammy hadn't complained once.

Sammy's hands moved from his thighs to Dean's scalp, stroking his dirty-blonde brush cut and pulling him closer as he moaned. He bucked forward, shyly, and Dean sucked to encourage him. Small ridges and bumps had begun to develop along his shaft, and a thick vein stood out on the underside, just like with Dean's. He was way more aware of all the little details than he had been the last time he'd jerked Sammy off - his tongue was way more sensitive than this hands.

Sammy whimpered softly. "Dean - De - " His hands tightened in Dean's close-cropped hair, and Dean opened his mouth a little wider to take his full length, guessing that he was close. He'd let go before he actually came, but he'd get him to that point with his mouth.

A key rattled in the lock.

Dean jerked his mouth off of Sammy's little cock so fast he almost gave himself whiplash. It produced a loud, wet popping noise, and a surprised cry from Sammy, both of which he fervently hoped Dad hadn't heard. Because it had to be him on the other side of the door - who else would have a key? He swiped a quick tongue over his lips to get rid of the mixture of precome and saliva that covered them, shoved a pillow at Sam's crotch, and pulled him down onto his stomach. He was panting. Dean took a couple of precious seconds to stroke his hair.

"It's okay," he told him gently, then scrambled off of the bed and launched himself at their father's. He barely had time to stretch out and look casual before the door opened.

Sam was flopped on their bed, every sign of what they'd been doing hidden underneath him. He looked tired and strained, red-faced with strands of his dark hair sticking to his forehead and cheeks, but that could be attributed to a tough day at school. Or maybe their dad would think that they'd been wrestling. Dean, on the other hand, was sprawled out easily on the other bed, his fingers laced together behind his head yet again and the folds of his jeans hiding his own erection.

"Hi, Dad," he greeted, voice perfectly calm. Sam's breath hitched, on the other bed. Dad didn't even glance at them, just knelt so that he could rummage around in his duffle bag.

"It's gonna be another late night, boys," he told them, voice rough and distracted. He pulled a bundle wrapped in ratty red cloth out, examined it critically in the dying light that was streaming in between the slats in the blinds, then pocketed it. Dean recognized it as the first and only hex bag that he'd found in this town, under a park bench. "Dean, there's money in my bag. Go ahead and order pizza."

"Well, y'know, I could go with you," Dean suggested, sitting up straight. It tore at him to say the words. "I could help out." No. No, he really couldn't. He had to stay here with Sammy - the need to be with him went way past any obligation he might have to just finish what he started. Though that definitely played a part in it. But, hell, he'd been raised to hunt. It would hurt just as badly not to ask.

That didn't mean that he didn't wince a little, though, when Sam huffed out a mournful little sigh.

The guilt was gone as soon as Dad stood up and shook his head, saying, "No. I want you to stay here with Sammy, Dean." That was almost always the case, unless there was somebody else who could watch Sammy. Like Bobby.

Dean's upbringing, thankfully, hadn't instilled him with a compulsion to ask if Dad was sure, so he nodded, shrugged, and said, "Okay." As soon as the door was closed and locked, leaving the two of them alone once again, Dean was off the bed and at Sam's side.

Sammy rolled over, tossing aside the pillow, and sat up. A wet spot - part spit, part precome - had appeared on the thin fabric. Dean figured that it'd dry.

"'M real sorry," he murmured, stroking Sam's thick hair again and pressing a kiss to his temple. "I just..." He hesitated, then slipped an arm around his scrawny shoulders and sighed. "Dad can't catch us doing stuff like this."

"Yeah, I know." Sammy had folded his legs. He was covering himself with one hand, and using the other to play with his sock-covered feet. "'Cause it's wrong."

"Far as I'm concerned..." Dean gently moved Sammy's hand. "...it's not wrong at all." Yeah, it was, and he knew that, but hearing Sammy say it made his guts twist. "Wanna finish up?"

Dean took care of Sammy. He coaxed a wailing, shuddering orgasm out of him, cleaned him up, fed him, helped him with his homework, then got him into bed. Sammy was asleep almost immediately once Dean's arms were around him, gripping a handful of the T-shirt that he slept in and breathing softly against the tender skin of his lower neck.

He hadn't actually managed to figure out which way Sam swung, but that seemed so insignificant at the moment. Like one star out of the billions that were shining down on the motel from above.

**Early October, 2005**

Sam was fast asleep. He'd gotten a full eight hours last night, almost entirely uninterrupted, but it was like a reflex with him: if he had a full stomach and spent over an hour in the warm car, he was out like a light. It'd been that way ever since he was little. Though...this was the first time since they'd left Palo Alto that he'd dropped off in the car. So maybe it was a trust thing, too. A safety thing.

Dean was driving. Over the past half an hour or so, he'd watched Sam relax more and more against the passenger side door of the Impala, until he was all but melted into every nook and cranny, with his head resting against the window. His face was completely relaxed, his mouth slightly open. Dean smiled as he reached over to tuck one of his wavy curls back behind his ear.

"D'you like boys or girls, Sammy?" he asked softly. Even asleep, Sam leaned into the touch, a small, gentle smile spreading across his face. He murmured out something that sounded remarkably like Dean's name. "Ah...same answer."

Sam twitched suddenly in his sleep, the movement momentary and violent. Dean dropped his hand down to his younger brother's, squeezing firmly, and the twitch didn't repeat itself. He smiled again, so happy that it probably counted as some kind of drug.

At the risk of jinxing both of them...things were pretty much perfect right now.


	18. Chapter Eighteen

Travel, for Sam, had almost always meant sleep, if he knew that they were going to be on the road longer than a couple of hours. It was something that he'd started when he was young enough to need a car seat (but, of course, he'd never had one; his father had preferred to spend what little money they had on weapons, while a tiny Dean held Sam on his lap with a death grip in the back seat), and the habit had stuck with him while he aged. It was easier than trying to entertain himself by counting the telephone poles that ticked methodically past. It just made the time pass faster.

And he had never slept better than he did in the Impala. There was just something...deeper about it, more restful. The leather seats, worn smooth and soft from years of his family sliding across them, were so much more comfortable than a broken-down motel mattress could ever be. The thrum of the engine and the radio provided the perfect amount of white noise to keep him from starting awake at every tiny sound. Like he had in the near-complete quiet of the Stanford apartments.

Dean was so close to him, too. That was the safety aspect. He knew his older brother could reach over and calm him with a touch within seconds if he saw that he was having a nightmare or something. It wasn't quite as good as being held by him in bed, but it was close, and the knowledge that the Impala could outrun almost anything that might want to hurt them made up the difference and then some.

Quite a contrast, between how he felt right now and how he'd felt as they drove to Nevada from Palo Alto. Sam wasn't bothered in the slightest by that.

True to form, he spent most of the day after he and Jess had broken up sleeping deeply. Warm sunlight, soft leather, Dean. If a better recipe for a tranquilizer existed, he hadn't found it yet. The rest he got in the car was pretty important, seeing as sleep deprivation made him twitchy and paranoid, but he didn't object to Dean waking him up for lunch or to bitch about the endless wheat fields that they were passing through. Sitting next to him, spending time with him, exchanging casual touches...Sam felt like a massive wound that'd been festering on his psyche for the last two years was finally starting to heal.

There was one kiss, since Dean seemed to understand that Sam needed to take this thing as slow as possible. Sam tasted grease from a burger and fries on his brother's full lips, and the flavor was so familiar that, if he'd been standing up, his knees would've given right out. This felt so _right_ , and his father's voice didn't intrude once.

So, all in all, it was a pretty good day.

Sam didn't realize just how far he'd come (or regressed, depending on what your opinion on consensual incest was), though, until they stopped at a small Pennsylvanian motel an hour after the sun had set. They'd eaten, and they were both tired - even Sam. It'd be more convenient to sleep and then make the rest of the trip in the morning than it would to just push through.

"One room," the clerk said with a slow, dignified nod. He was an ancient man, wrinkled features twisted up into a permanent expression of vague disapproval and stick-thin frame covered in an outdated suit. He matched the motel that he owned perfectly, with its musty carpet and faded wallpaper. "And what about..." He tapped a couple of keys on his dinosaur of a computer. "...beds?"

He peered at Dean, standing right in front of him and protected only by a thin slice of scarred wooden counter, in such a way that promised trouble if he asked for anything less than two separate beds. Dean hesitated, hand in his pocket to pull out his wallet as soon as he needed it.

"Uh." He glanced over at Sam, who was standing right next to him with the strap of his backpack over one shoulder. Sam glanced back, not quite sure why he was hesitating. "Well, I guess we want..."

And he trailed off. Sam frowned in confusion as Dean bounced his eyebrows meaningfully, then shifted his weight as he sighed a little and gave him a not-very-subtle nudge. The clerk watched them with beady eyes. He might have been judging them, but then again, that might have just been his face.

"What?" Sam asked, shaking his head helplessly and shrugging. Dean rolled his eyes.

"Sam," he started firmly. Apparently, he'd decided that non-verbal cues just weren't gonna cut it. "What d'you want for tonight? One bed, or two of 'em?"

"Oh. _Oh_." Sam blinked, then flushed, understanding all of a sudden. "One king," he hastily told the clerk, who handed the room key to them like they were a pair of lepers. At least he gave them a room.

Sam fidgeted a little, embarrassed, as Dean handed over a fake ID and an equally-fake credit card. He hadn't even realized what Dean was trying to ask him, because he'd just assumed that they'd get one bed. The idea of sleeping in separate ones hadn't occurred to him now that he no longer had a girlfriend waiting for him, even though he'd told Dean to talk to him before asking for a room with a single bed in it. Dean had remembered that, and he'd honored it, even though Sam hadn't.

"Think we spent too long in the car today," Dean commented dryly, as he dropped his duffel bag onto their bed. The mattress creaked alarmingly, despite the fact that the bag had Dean's clothes in it and not much else. "Your brain's fried." He reached across the bed, where Sam was rifling through his backpack in search of their toothpaste, and tapped him on the head with two fingers. "Bet you anything that it's this ridiculous mop...if you gave me a pair of scissors, I could have that thing off in ten seconds flat."

"Yeah...and both my ears, too," Sam said with a grin, grabbing onto Dean's hand as he drew it back. It was a reflex, just a way to make more of that wonderful contact. "You're not coming anywhere near my head with sharp tools."

Dean grinned back, and opened his mouth to say something, but Sam didn't hear it. There was too much...interference. For lack of a better word. He dropped Dean's hand and jerked back, reaching up to clutch at either side of his head as his father's voice - once again, not a memory, it was like he was right there with him - thundered through his brain. It was louder than it'd ever been before, almost loud enough to fuzz out all his other senses, and it sparked a wave of nauseating fear and guilt that all but brought him to his knees.

He missed the memories. At least, with those, he'd known exactly what was coming.

 _Shouldn't you know better than to let him touch you by now?_ John demanded. Sam was vaguely aware of Dean reaching for him, demanding to know what was wrong in a voice shot through with fear. He twisted away and sat down, hard, on the wine-colored carpet of the motel room. He couldn't stand to have his hands on him. Not with this in his head. He didn't think that standing was too good of an idea right now, either. _You're just encouraging this kinda behavior, Sam. This_ perversion. _You can't even give your brother an inch, or he'll take a mile with you, because he knows that you're just as sick as he is. How the hell can you actually want this, Sam? After all the times we've talked about this? After what you know? What's wrong with you?_

Sam had drawn his knees up to his chest and was rocking back and forth on the floor, just trying to ride out the storm. He didn't want to throw up, he didn't want to pass out, and he definitely didn't want to do both at once (though he was sure that Dean wouldn't let him drown). John yelled debasements and reprimands at him, and he slowly became aware of a thin taste of blood in his mouth as he bit down on his own tongue. He was told that, just because he'd driven his girlfriend off by telling her all about this abomination, he did not have free reign to let his brother fuck him. He flinched as his father called him weak, and pathetic. A junkie. An addict. Nothing at all unless he knew that he could hop in bed with Dean later - he'd allowed himself to become little more than that. He shook, twisting his hair around his fingers as it just got worse and worse, but, finally, it began to go away. Sam's grip on his head loosened, and he straightened up out of the hunched, tight position that he'd been in. The rolling illness, like something rotten at the very heart of him, started to ebb. And he became vaguely aware of Dean yelling something about calling 911.

"No..." Sam stretched out on the carpet, chest heaving with the strain of what he'd just gone through. He raised a hand to shut Dean up, and was relieved when the movement didn't make him want to dry-heave. "Don't do that, I'm okay. That was just a really bad one."

The severity of these...whatever the hell they were (flashbacks? Did he have some kind of PTSD?) seemed to fluctuate. He might have thought that that was interesting, if it'd been happening to someone who wasn't him. One had hit him this morning while he'd been undressing in front of Dean, but it'd been over within seconds, and his father's voice had been weak. Emotionless, almost. And then, this time...he was pretty sure that this was the absolute worst it'd ever been.

"A really bad _what?"_ Dean demanded. Sam turned his head to look at him, noting that he was kneeling beside him. His hands were tightly squeezing his thighs, as if he wanted to reach over and hold Sam close to himself, but was afraid to.

"Just a..." Sam pushed himself up into a sitting position, slowly. He was cautious, really not wanting to trigger another episode. "...you know. A thing. It happens."

"But that looked like it hurt. Like, you were practically screa - " Dean had been reaching forward as he was arguing, probably meaning to help him to his feet, but he abruptly stopped talking when Sam instinctively flinched away from his touch. He just...he didn't want it to come back. "You were practically screaming. I've seen you with compound fractures that didn't make you act like that."

Sam stood up. He was a little shaky, but otherwise, he thought that he was okay. No bruises, no bleeds. He walked over to the bed and sat down, though. Just to be safe.

"Dean, c'mon. Look at me. I'm just fine now," Sam insisted. His scalp was sore, probably from where he'd been tugging at his hair. "Just like I am most of the time. I was fine for most of today, wasn't I?"

"You freaking collapsed." Dean was obviously freaked out. He was pacing, and there was a bite to his voice. "All the others - you just went stiff, shook a little. Figured you were psyching yourself up or something. But this - Jesus Christ, Sam, this was different."

"No, I just...I wasn't expecting it." Sam resolutely shook his head. "Calm down."

"You never expect it," Dean shot back. "It always catches you off-guard, whatever it is. But this one literally floored you. I thought you were gonna pass out."

"So...what?" Sam asked, shaking his head. It was like telling Jess about his relationship with Dean all over again: he didn't want to talk about this. It was shameful, it was strange, and he could deal with it on his own. He didn't need any outside help - especially not from his big brother. He didn't think that he could handle Dean looking at him like some broken thing right now. "Are you really gonna drag me in to see a doctor just because I get a little jumpy every once in awhile? Throw this entire search for Dad right off the rails?"

"If this happens on a hunt..." Dean began, trailing off. He didn't have to continue. Sam knew exactly what would happen if his father's voice broke into his head at this volume while a slavering werewolf was bearing down on him.

"It's not gonna happen again," Sam promised, even though he had no way to be sure of that. For all he knew, it could hit him again in the next five minutes. It could get worse. "I'm getting better. I promise."

It wouldn't have taken the recipient of a full-ride scholarship to Stanford to see that Dean didn't believe him. For just a second, Sam was sure that he was going to completely reject what he'd just said. Shake his head, declare that he'd bitten his damn tongue about this for long enough, and then demand to know exactly what was going on with Sam. He'd want to know what he was seeing, and what he was hearing. What had hurt him so badly less than ten minutes ago.

But instead, Dean just sighed deeply, a sound of frustration and defeat. He looked away, and Sam couldn't interpret that as anything more than a surrender.

"D'you want me to sleep on the floor tonight?" Dean stuffed his hands into his pockets, looking wearily at Sam. He must have decided that it was too late at night to switch to a room with two beds.

"No," Sam said automatically, shaking his head. Even though he was afraid, he forced himself to reach for Dean, but Dean didn't reach back. He looked like he wanted to, though, and he looked like staying away physically hurt him. But he wasn't stupid. He had to know what triggered Sam's episodes, and he probably didn't want to bring on another one.

"Well, I can't exactly sleep all tangled up around you tonight," he said, shrugging and turning away. The set of his shoulders made him look wounded. "Look. I'll just sleep on the floor."

"Dean, no, c'mon." Sam knew that he had a point. He got to his feet, and said, "I've been napping all day. You've been driving. You need the sleep more than I do - you take the bed, and I'll sleep on the floor."

"Uh, no, I don't think so," Dean replied, shaking his head. "Not after that. I think that it'd really be better if there was a mattress under you...even if it's a crappy one." Sam opened his mouth to argue, but Dean cut him off. "C'mon. Bed. Now." He snapped his fingers towards it, having adopted his commanding "big brother" voice, and Sam very reluctantly obeyed.

He stretched out across the huge, empty face of the mattress in boxers and a T-shirt, while Dean bedded down on the floor by the other side of the bed. Sam had tried to get him to take a pillow and a blanket, but he'd decided to act like a toddler throwing a tantrum and had just grunted in response, laying down on the carpet with nothing. Even though he'd been the one to suggest this damn arrangement, and had fought for it, too. It was pretty damn obvious that he was hurt, and confused, and everything in between, but Sam just couldn't bring himself to explain everything. He fell asleep feeling so guilty it made him nauseous all over again.

When he woke up, though, he was lying on dirty, matted-down carpet, clinging to his brother like he was a life raft in the middle of the open ocean.

\------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

They hit the road around nine in the morning, after breakfast, showers, kisses and casual teasing, and absolutely zero mention of what had happened to their sleeping arrangements last night. After getting directions from a guy at a gas station (and a cup of pitch-black coffee that Dean, wide awake and in a good mood, claimed that he desperately needed), Sam realized that he knew pretty much nothing about the geography of Pennsylvania. Three Mile Island was in a river, not an ocean, and the state didn't have any coasts. Had they ever been to Pennsylvania before? Maybe once or twice, and he'd been pretty young.

"Okay," Sam announced. His laptop was resting on his thighs, and he'd spent the last half an hour pouring over a page that he'd pulled up back at the gas station, taking advantage of the wifi. A Rush song was blaring on the radio and Dean was loudly humming along, but he'd spent years learning how to tune both out while reading. "The meltdown happened in seventy-nine. And...even though everyone says that the reactor's been haunted since then, this is the first time that the ghost activity has really kicked up."

"Why the hell is that?" Dean asked with a frown, reaching over to turn the radio down. Sam must really have his attention. He couldn't suppress a smirk, or an urge to scoot just a little closer to his brother on the seat. It was easy. Wasn't like the car had seatbelts. "Almost thirty years since they shut the thing down, and all the ghosts wait until now to go nuts?"

"I'm not even sure that there really are any ghosts," Sam replied, professional once again. Dean squinted at him, as they drove straight into the sunlight.

"We haven't even checked the place out yet," he said, shaking his head. "They post EMF readings on that site of yours or something?"

"They don't have to." Sam tapped the screen. "Nobody's ever died in or near the reactor. Either during the incident, or later. Usually, with places like this, you'll see kids sneaking in all the time for cheap thrills, but I guess none of them were ever dumb enough to get themselves killed."

"Maybe there's a cover up," Dean suggested. He'd spread his legs without Sam noticing, and now their knees were pressed together, the place where they met warm and soothing. It was like last night had never happened. "I mean, this was a nuclear meltdown in the seventies. Height of the Cold War. If I were in the government, I'd wanna keep the fear and loathing to a minimum. And I wouldn't want the Soviets finding out, either."

"I don't think so," Sam responded. He switched to another tab and turned his laptop so that Dean could see. His brother, always the uncharacteristically responsible driver, only took a quick glance before returning his attention to the road. "Even the conspiracy sites, like this one, don't talk about anyone dying during the meltdown. Just a bunch of higher-than-normal cancer statistics that the government is supposedly trying to hide."

"Maybe one of the people who died from cancer is haunting it, then."

"Not unless they decided that the reactor would be a great place to die and broke in," Sam remarked dryly. "Ghosts can't leave the area that they died in unless they possess someone, Dean. And that's rare. You know this."

Dean shrugged, looking a little embarrassed. "Just tryna be helpful," he muttered.

Sam softened a little. It wasn't like he wasn't rusty himself, after two years spent as far away from the "family business" as he could get. And it wasn't like they weren't both more than a little distracted right now. Which he proved when he reached over to lay a hand over Dean's, where it was clenching the steering wheel. He was rewarded with a smile much more gentle than anything most people would ever see on Dean.

"But if this whole thing's a load of bullshit," he began, after several moments of comfortable silence, "how come we don't turn around and look for Dad somewhere else?"

The mention of their father, casual as it was, made Sam swallow hard. Dean didn't appear to notice. Or maybe he did, considering that he slipped his hand out from under Sam's and switched their positions. The squeeze that he offered gave Sam his voice back.

"Because I said that there weren't any ghosts," Sam countered. He switched over to a third tab on his browser - a news article this time, on the local paper's website. "I didn't say that there wasn't anything going on here. Quite a few people - like, 'pillar-of-the-community" type people - have given similar reports. A pair of red lights over by the reactor, like eyes, flapping noises, weird figures at night. Things like that."

"So you think it's some kinda creature?" Dean asked, frowning. His hand was still on Sam's. Sam appreciated that. "Well, if it can fly, might be a harpy or two...they usually nest in places a lot more secluded than this, though." He glanced over at Sam. "Who's our first witness?"

Sam dropped his gaze back to the screen of his laptop. "The very first one to call in and complain was Cynthia Hu. She works as a receptionist at the local dentist's office." He frowned a little himself. That name sounded familiar to him. Suppressing a sigh, he flipped back over to the conspiracy theory site. "Oh. Great."

"What's up?" Dean asked, though he didn't take his eyes off the road. They'd hit quite a bit of traffic all of a sudden, and Sam appreciated the effort that he was making to not kill the both of them.

"Looks like our first witness is also a hardcore conspiracy theorist." Sam pulled his hand away from Dean's and laced his fingers together behind his head, staring down at the picture next to the blog post on his screen. A middle-aged Asian woman, wearing cat's-eye glasses and with her heavily-glossed lips pressed to the end of a platinum cigarette holder. "She maintains a website called 'The Three Mile Lie...'" He scrolled up, reading the subheading at the top of the page. "'...and Other Things that Just Don't Add Up.'"

"'Pillar of the community,' eh?" Dean asked with a grin, fluidly passing a man in an electric-blue Mustang. He looked like he was a year or two younger than Sam, and when he honked angrily at them, Dean flipped him a casual bird through the rear window. Sam rolled his eyes. Since he'd been about fifteen, he'd harbored the firm believe that, someday, Dean was going to get shot for being a smartass. He must have picked up on his annoyance, though, because he dropped his hand to his thigh and squeezed affectionately.

"She's the exception." Sam chewed slowly at the inside of his lower lip, bringing his arms down so that he could fold them across his chest. "We can't do federal marshals this time around, or FBI agents. She'd slam the door in our faces. D'you have press passes in that box?"

"Might. Dig through it." Sam nodded, flipping his laptop closed and setting it down on the floor. Unfortunately, doing so meant that Dean had to take his hand off of his thigh. Digging the box of fake badges and IDs out, he pulled the lid off and sifted through the contents, making a noise of triumph when he found what he was looking for. He groaned, though, when he realized that his had the exact same picture on it as the rest of the laminated cards in the box.

He didn't say anything about it, though. The picture was annoying, sure, but it wasn't like they'd had any real time in which to change it. Him bitching about it wouldn't do any good.

They reached the island as one in the afternoon rolled around, eyeing the nuclear power plant and the small community as they finished up the sandwiches that they'd grabbed for lunch (and took advantage of their last few minutes of privacy before they really started the case - Sam leaned casually against Dean, Dean drove with one hand while threading the fingers of the other through his shaggy hair). The first person that they stopped and asked easily pointed them towards Cynthia Hu's house, asked what they wanted with her, and accepted their explanation of being reporters who wanted to interview her with a smile. Even though they stumbled over exactly which news source they belonged to.

"Why in the hell would the New York Times be down here?" Dean demanded, shooting a glare at Sam as he guided the Impala slowly through the curves of the streets. "It's the ass-end of nowhere, and the story itself ain't exactly juicy."

"Better than Weekly World News," Sam shot back. "At least people'll take me seriously."

"Bitch," Dean said, shaking his head, and Sam felt a rush of pure warmth as he replied, "Jerk."

When Dean pulled up in front of what must have been Cynthia's home, Sam scrutinized what he could see from the street, looking for anything that screamed "paranoia." The house looked normal, though. Maybe the front lawn was a little more yellow than those around it, maybe the siding could use a good coat of paint, but that was it. The windows weren't blacked out and there was no "Trespassers will be shot" sign staked firmly in the ground.

"Okay, seriously...who do we work for?" Dean asked with a shake of his head, killing the engine and glancing over at Sam.

"Small magazine," Sam decided, after a moment of consideration. "We focus on the paranormal, and...the inexplicable. We're just starting out." He paused, thinking, then shrugged and said, "Supernatural. That's our title."

"Not half-bad," Dean conceded. Sam guessed that he was just glad to have something that they could agree on. Nothing worse than looking unprofessional and blowing your cover in front of a witness. He reached forward to take Sam's hand in a firm shake, but he guessed that it was more about touching him than it was about sealing the deal. He had no problem with that. "Okay. We're from Supernatural."

Sam was content to let Dean lead the way up to the door, after they'd gotten out of the car and locked it. This time, though, it wasn't because he didn't want him checking out his ass. He was totally fine with Dean checking out his ass, actually. He was totally fine with him touching it, too, just so long as he didn't get too aggressive. This was more of...a return to the natural order of things. Dean was older, so Dean was in charge. Dean was the leader.

The door was yanked open almost as soon as Dean knocked on it, so he was left awkwardly holding his fist in the air for a couple of seconds. A woman recognizable as Cynthia Hu was standing in the doorway, hair twisted up into a messy bun and held in place with a clip, the remains of a cigarette clamped firmly between her lips. Her eyes, squinted in suspicion, swept slowly up and down their bodies.

On the way, Sam had wondered if, maybe, they should've rented suits. Just as an effort to look more professional. But now he was glad that he hadn't said anything; jeans and T-shirts would probably seem more trustworthy to this sort of woman than suits would.

"Hey," Dean said, after a few moments of tense, awkward silence. "I'm Dean, this is Sam. We're here to interview you for our magazine." He smiled, that bright, trustworthy, totally-fake expression that had only been turned on Sam two or three times in his entire life. "Mind if we come inside?"

Cynthia reached up, pulling the cigarette butt out of her mouth and grinding it out in the nearest ash tray. It was sitting on a hall table, right next to her.

"I suppose," she said, reaching into the pocket of her own jeans to pull out a half-empty carton of Marlboros. Sam had expected her to have a slight accent, but there was no trace of one in the croaking hoarseness of her voice. She turned around and disappeared into the hallways of her house with a strong, smooth stride. Sam walked after her, hearing the flick of a lighter ahead. Dean stayed as close to him as he could. Their hands brushed frequently, and Sam kept expecting to feel lips on the back of his neck. Even though they were on a case, and they had to be professional, he was a little disappointed when he never did.

The inside of Cynthia's house was everything that the outside was not, and Sam felt a little vindicated by that. An entire wall was dedicated to framed copies of newspaper articles that talked about health defects caused by the chemicals in Love Canal. An original-looking painting of a nuclear power plant, the steam coming out of its stacks forming a death's head, hung in the hall. Dean raised his eyebrows as they passed a bulletin board covered in clippings and pictures and comics and notes, all about human experimentation. Sam understood his surprise. It looked exactly like the technique that their father had taught them for spreading out all their information and making new connections in a case.

The whole house smelled like the inside of a cigarette. The carpet, wallpaper, and furniture were all heavily stained by nicotine and smoke, and overflowing ashtrays had been placed on every available surface.

Cynthia dropped onto the small couch in her living room, spreading out and bringing two fingers up in order to hold the cigarette that she was obsessively puffing away at in place. Dean sank into an armchair, that left Sam with an ottoman, and he definitely caught his brother's superior grin as he sat down.

"I'm just going to go out on a limb here," Cynthia said. There was already ash on the tip of her cigarette, and she shook it off into a tray that was perched haphazardly on the arm of the couch. "Your magazine specializes in strange things, and you're here to interview me about what I've been seeing at the plant."

"Lucky guess." Dean leaned forward, placing his forearms on his thighs and spreading his knees so that he could clasp his hands between them. "Ms. Hu - "

"Cynthia. My god." She tipped her head back and blew smoke at the ceiling. "'Ms. Hu' is my mother. I'm only thirty-two."

Sam's eyebrows shot straight up, and he shared a quick glance with Dean. Cigarettes, he supposed, were rougher on some people than others. Especially if you smoked your first pack at, say, nine. He tried to hide his embarrassment when, smirking, Cynthia added, "Give or take twenty years or so."

"Can you tell us when this whole thing started?" Dean asked, appearing unfazed. "When did you first notice that weird stuff was going on near the plant?"

"It was a few months ago. I called the police and told them that there were teenagers trying to break in." She was looking at Sam as she spoke, and surprise must have shown on his face, because she sighed and pulled the cigarette out of her mouth as she continued. She held it between her index and middle fingers, just below the tips. It was almost elegant. "I'm not stupid. I didn't know exactly what it was, but if I said 'ghosts' or 'aliens,' they definitely wouldn't have gone and checked it out."

"But they didn't find anything," Sam pointed out. How the hell was that cigarette already halfway gone?

"They found something, but it didn't make any sense. To them, at least." Cynthia waved a cloud of smoke away from her face. "They found ash."

Sam watched Dean frown, his green eyes cutting towards the tray on the arm of the couch. "Ash?"

"Fine, gray ash," Cynthia confirmed, nodding slowly. "You know. Like the kind that would fall from the sky after a nuclear apocalypse."

Sam caught the "here-comes-the-crazy" look that Dean shot at him, right before said, "That wasn't in the police report."

"No, of course it wasn't. They didn't think that it was important," Cynthia said with a shrug. "I have a friend on the force, and she gave me a sample. Hang on..." Cynthia stood up, striding out of the room. She returned before Sam could start up the soft, covert discussion with Dean that he wanted to have (or reach over to lay a hand on him, which would've been nice, too), a brand-new cigarette somehow dangling from her lip and a small baggie in her hand. "Go ahead and take a look at that."

She tossed the bag over the back of the couch, and Dean easily caught it as she walked around the piece of furniture and sat back down. He studied whatever was inside of it for several moments, face unreadable and eyes half-lidded, before throwing it directly into Sam's hands.

He started down at the contents, working them slowly between his hands. Fine gray ash, just like Cynthia had said. He wasn't sure that it was actually ash, though; it looked a little too fine for that. More like dust. It glittered a little bit as he moved it, softly iridescent, and he knew that it reminded him of something, but he had no idea what.

"It's interesting, isn't it?" Sam looked up when Cynthia spoke again. "It's not radioactive, though. I already checked."

"You have any theories on what it is?" Dean asked. Cynthia shrugged as she took a long pull from her cigarette.

"The dust, or the thing at the plant? Never mind, I'll tell you about both. The dust, well, that's obviously a warning," she said with a firm nod. Dean rolled his eyes. Sam smiled when he saw him doing it. "And I'm not sure if it's ghosts, or something else, but whatever it is...it doesn't want us to repeat the mistake that we made in seventy-nine. It wants the plant completely shut down."

"Were you living on the island when the accident happened?" Sam spoke up. He'd put the bag of ash/dust on the ground beside him. Cynthia nodded vigorously, and didn't ask for it back.

"Yes! Yes, I was. And it was horrifying, let me tell you." She sighed and leaned back against the couch, shaking her head and drawing arcs of smoke in the air. "They never got the whole thing contained, did you know that? They never cleaned it all up. They said that they did, of course, but that was bullshit."

From what Sam had read, the reactor had managed to maintain its own fuel, and no radiation had leaked out. He didn't say that, though. You never called a witness a liar this early in the case.

"And of course we're the ones that got burned by it." Cynthia thumped a fist against her ribcage, right below her left breast. "This entire lung is full of cancer, and there was a smudge in the other one on my last X-ray. I bet that you can't guess where that came from."

He waited for another witty, clever remark that undermined what she'd just said, but it never came. Dean was struggling to hold back laughter, but Sam was sure that Cynthia couldn't tell, since she hadn't known him for over twenty years. He raked skeptical eyes over the very-obvious nicotine stains all around them, and the cigarette in Cynthia's mouth. Almost gone. Yeah, no way could he guess where the cancer had come from.

"Tell us exactly what you saw," he said. "When you called the police."

"Red eyes," Cynthia responded. "I saw glowing red eyes, moving around near the reactor. And I heard wingbeats."

"And that was it."

"That was it. But I've been told that other people saw more. Maybe you should talk to them, too."

"Yeah, thanks. I'm pretty sure that we will," Dean said, pushing himself up into a standing position with a sigh. "We really appreciate all your help. Sammy?"

Getting to his feet, Sam murmured a thank-you of his own, and handed the back of dust back over to Cynthia. He turned to follow Dean after he settled a gentle hand onto his shoulder, but Cynthia stopped them.

"Wait a minute. Gentlemen." She was watching them, still smoking, and there was a look of realization in her eyes. Like she'd finally figured out something difficult after extensive research. "I have a question for you, before you go."

"Um...all right," Sam agreed, despite the warning look that Dean shot him. How bad could one question from a fifty-year-old blogger be? "Ask away."

"Whoever your boss is. Does he or she know that the two of you are sleeping together?" Cynthia asked, looking calm and completely innocent.

Sam was so shocked that he couldn't force out anything beyond the words, "We're not." Because they weren't. Not in the way that she meant. Dean obviously didn't have that problem, though, because, as a savage grin spread across his face, he said, "I sure as hell hope he doesn't."

They were outside before Sam knew it, sitting in the Impala, and Dean was muttering something about this being the second time. Even though Sam was curious about exactly what he was referring to, he couldn't ask. He couldn't even open his mouth. When Dean reached over, for whatever reason, he grabbed his hand and squeezed. That prompted a few confused questions, and a concerned kiss. He still couldn't talk.

He couldn't hear the voice, he wasn't feeling sick. He was still terrified, though. And Dean must have sensed that, because he didn't press, just kept him close as they drove back across the bridge that led out to the island. Sam was calming down by the time that they reached a motel and checked in (there hadn't been any on the island, unfortunately), because nothing had happened so far. But he was still spooked enough by Dean's words and his own kneejerk triggers to lay down on their single, king-sized bed and silently beg to be held. He didn't feel safe or clean or, hell, even human, until Dean's arms were around him and they were curled up on top of the sky-blue comforter.

"Sammy?" Dean's voice was soft, and not demanding at all. He must have realized that this definitely wasn't the same as last night - this was something new. And that confused him. God, Sam wanted to reassure him, but all he could do was take a deep, shuddering breath and bury his face in Dean's neck, breathing in his scent and relaxing even further when nothing at all happened. His heartbeat slowed a little, but that was it. "Sammy. What is it? What freaked you out? Was it something she said?" There was a pause. "D'you...just not feel good?" A hand was pressed to his forehead. "Well, you feel pretty cool...Sam. C'mon. Can't help you if you don't tell me what's up."

"'M fine," Sam murmured, finally. "Just...panic attack. Sorry. Overwhelmed." Which was actually the truth.

"You want me to sleep on the - ?"

"No. Jesus, Dean, no. Not tonight." But he couldn't say anything more than that.

Because their "boss" did know, and his voice would be in Sam's head again before twenty-four hours had passed, and the only thing that he could do right now was hold onto his brother-lover as tightly as he could.


	19. Chapter Nineteen

"Mornin'."

"Ugh," Sam moaned, refusing to open his eyes. His face was pressed into soft cotton, a T-shirt pulled over a warm, well-muscled chest, and there were strong arms around him. If he just kept his eyes closed and stayed where he was, it felt like he was twelve years old again. He and Dean were alone in the motel room or at a family friend's. Their father didn't even suspect the true nature of their relationship. "No way. It can't be."

"I warned you, didn't I?" Dean's voice was soft, teasing. Sam had a fistful of something that he was pretty sure was his brother's shirt, and he tightened his grip on it as gentle fingers began to stroke through his hair. "You're not what I'd call a morning person even when you get a full eight hours. Never have been. And when you stay up until frickin' _one_ reading some tinfoil-hat site..."

"It was Cynthia's website," Sam mumbled. The covers were heavy on him, the mattress warmed with his and Dean's combined body heat. "And you know it. I just wanted to make sure that there wasn't anything she didn't tell us while we were there." He moved his head slightly, and felt his hair catch on the stubble on the underside of Dean's jaw. He frowned slightly. He knew that Dean preferred the five o'clock shadow look, but in Sam's opinion, he was overdue for a shave. "I was reading up on the history of the island and the plant, too."

"And you found...?" Dean pressed, a smile in his voice. Eyes still closed, Sam groaned loudly and made a point of rolling over, facing away from him. He was careful not to disrupt Dean's grip on him, though.

"Shut up, jerk," he muttered, as Dean scooted his pelvis back a little. Sam couldn't imagine what he was doing at first, but then realized that he probably didn't want his morning wood pressing into his ass. He didn't want to take the risk that he'd make him uncomfortable. Sam swallowed, and snuggled a little more deeply into Dean's embrace, trying to show him just how much he appreciated the tiny gesture without saying anything about it. "It's a whole hell of a lot more than you did." He pressed his head harder into the pillow that it was resting on. "And 'm trying to sleep."

"No way, bitch." Dean was, all of a sudden, gone, and half a second later, the covers were brutally ripped off of Sam. He made a wordless noise of complaint, drawing himself up into a fetal position in an effort to conserve body heat. "Let's load up on coffee and get going. Got lots to do today."

At a very young age, Sam had stopped trying to figure out just how Dean was so energetic and cheerful in the mornings. There didn't seem to be an earthly explanation - especially because Dean could be so incredibly lazy when it came to other things.

Sam didn't mind his older brother's early-bird tendencies when he stayed in bed with him and let him sleep. It only became annoying when he tried to get him up before he was ready.

"Just..." Sam buried his face in the pillow, with its scent of bleach and sweat that definitely wasn't his, as Dean snapped the curtains open and morning light flooded the room. "Go and get breakfast." He waved his hand in the vague direction of Dean. Or where he thought he was, at least. "When you come back, I'll get up. Promise."

The mattress creaked and shifted with new weight as Dean climbed back onto it, kneeling next to Sam. He bent down to whisper in his ear: "I've gotta better idea."

"Of course you do," Sam muttered, but he was smiling. Enjoying the closeness, and the easiness of their casual banter. His father's voice was nowhere to be found, and it was like nothing had ever changed between them.

"This place's got a kitchenette, doesn't it?" Dean continued. Sam grunted in agreement, even though, in his opinion, "kitchenette" was stretching it. They had a sink and a two-burner stove. "If you get up right now, I'll make you pancakes."

Sam raised his head and squinted at Dean, in the light that was far too harsh for this early in the morning. His stomach growled, traitorously. "We don't have the stuff to make pancakes."

"Which is why I'll be sending you out to get it." Dean smiled in a way that wouldn't have made Sam surprised to see a halo floating over his head. "There's a supermarket just down the street."

"You're a psychopath." He had to know that there was no way Sam could resist the promise of homemade breakfast from Dean. By some quirk of natural talent, or as the result of hard work that Sam had never been aware of, Dean was an incredible cook. Money, time, and resources didn't allow him to do it very often, which made it even more of a treat. The promise of Dean's cooking had been enough to break his will completely as a teenager, and it obviously wasn't too different now.

"No, I just know how to push your buttons," Dean murmured against his skin and the thin hair that covered it. "But seriously, you gotta get your ass in gear - we need to interview the other people who called in weird stuff, and we need to check out the abandoned reactor."

"Yeah, I'm sure that they'll let us just walk right in and do that," Sam muttered, rolling his eyes under half-closed lids. But he'd given up, and was slowly working his way into an upright position. His back ached from the majority of the night that he'd spent sitting in a highly-uncomfortable chair. "Fine. I'll go get pancake mix."

"Pancake mix? Oh, no, no, no. We need flour, eggs, butter...no way am I gonna make pancakes from mix. I'll write you a list - and you'd better not forget syrup." Dean must have been satisfied with Sam's progress in the way of waking up, because he climbed off of the bed. With a good-natured sort of irritation, Sam noted that he'd already gotten dressed while bothering him to get up. "By the way. After you're done in the shower, then I wanna take your stitches out." As Sam swung his legs over the side of the mattress and got to his feet, Dean added, "They're still feeling okay, aren't they?"

Sam was feeling a little bit better, now that he was standing up (even though the pressure of getting about ten different ingredients from the store was weighing heavily on him). Good enough to smile at Dean and reach up to pull his laundry-worn T-shirt off of his torso. His scratches hadn't hurt for two days or so now, and he could see why: the skin beneath the neat zigzag of black thread was flat, pale, and shiny. There was no sign of infection, and the wounds had become nothing more than scars. He put a hand on the bite wound, which had healed into silvery dimples where the adlet's teeth had dug into the muscle of his chest.

"What d'you think?" he asked.

He didn't protest when Dean stepped forward and laid his own hands over the perfectly-healed scars, or when those hands slipped down to areas that hadn't been torn up by the adlet. And after he'd showered quickly and Dean had clipped out his stitches (surprising him with how good it felt to have them gone), he didn't object to being pulled down onto the bed and kissed before he could leave for the store.

Rolling over and closing his eyes when Dean's touches got too heavy for him silenced his father's voice almost immediately.

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Reporters?"

"Yes, sir."

"...hmph."

"Can we...ask you a few questions? Please?"

"You know, I can remember when men in your profession wore suits."

"Yeah, well, we're not exactly professional. Independent magazine, y'know."

"I don't know what you think you're going to get from me that you didn't hear from Cynthia."

"We'd like to interview you anyway. If it's not too much trouble."

"We just wanna cover all our bases."

"Well, can we do it outside?"

Sam could feel a thick layer of sweat building up on his forehead, underneath his bangs, and he and Dean hadn't even been out of the air-conditioned car for fifteen minutes. More of it stung dully at the places where his stitches had been, on his upper torso. He was regretting both the genetics that had given him dark hair and his own decision to wear a black T-shirt today. Not to mention the four incredible pancakes, courtesy of Dean and his freakish talent in the kitchen, that he'd eaten; his full stomach definitely wasn't agreeing with the heat. But he smiled anyway, and nodded in response to Clay Jones's question.

"Yeah, of course we can." He might be miserable right now, but he could understand a reluctance to invite in a couple of underdressed young men. Dean wasn't quite so sympathetic: Sam caught his eye-roll, but was pretty sure that Jones didn't.

They'd come to talk to him while he was mowing the lawn, a tall, dark-haired man of about thirty with tanned, muscular limbs that were exposed by the tank top and shorts that he was wearing. He stood above the two of them on the slightly-elevated bank of his lawn, arms folded across his chest and a small dachshund, which had previously been bouncing along behind him as he pushed his mower, curled up next to one of his feet. Sam had caught Dean appreciatively looking him up and down, and had been offended, until he realized that Jones probably reminded him of Sam himself.

Of course, the resemblance had to both begin and end with the way they looked. Jones talked and acted like a stereotypical codger, despite how young he obviously was.

"What do you want to know?" Jones asked. Or, well, demanded. Sam had never felt so disliked for doing nothing at all.

"How 'bout you just tell us what you saw the night that you called the cops," Dean suggested. He seemed to have unconsciously settled into an exact mirror of Jones's position, and Sam resigned himself to an impending display of alpha male posturing.

"Exactly the same thing that Cynthia did," Jones replied.

"Well, we'd really like to hear it in your own words," Dean said, with a tight little smile. Sam could practically feel what little patience he had had to begin with evaporating. "Y'know. If that isn't too much trouble for you."

Jones eyed Dean, probably trying to figure out whether or not he was being made fun of, but finally answered without punching Sam's brother in the face.

"I heard wingbeats," he said evenly. "And I saw something with glowing red eyes."

"Can you elaborate?" Sam asked. A trickle of sweat ran down between his shoulder blades. How the hell was it so hot here? They were on a river.

"I saw something that looked like a huge bird." Jones didn't sound very happy about giving more details. "It flew around one of the reactors that they're still using, then it went back to the abandoned one and just disappeared into it."

Sam glanced over at Dean, in time to see him blink and unfold his arms. "That's not what Cynthia said."

"Well, maybe you just didn't badger her quite enough," Jones shot back with an accusing tone in his voice. Dean scowled.

"Thank you for your time," Sam interjected. He remembered, suddenly, what he'd told Jess about Dean needing him to keep him out of fights. "We really appreciate you letting us interview you, but we've gotta go." Putting a hand on Dean's shoulder, he began to guide him back towards where they'd parked, a couple houses down.

"I don't want my name printed in whatever magazine it is you're from," Jones called after them.

"Yeah, don't worry, I don't wanna tell anybody about you," Dean answered under his breath, grimacing. "Or your stupid little dog...who the hell has a wiener dog, anyway?"

"Well, they're small," Sam pointed out. "Easy to take care of."

"Whatever. Still totally useless." Dean walked around to the driver's side as they reached the Impala. He leaned his forearms on the roof of it, then jumped back with a hiss of pain, shaking his bare arms as he glared at the hot metal. Sam stifled a laugh and waited until he'd calmed down enough to continue. "Who's next on our list?"

"Donna Bauer," Sam replied. He'd memorized the names of everyone that they needed to talk to today. "Teacher at the nearest elementary school."

Dean nodded, then glanced down at his watch. "You wanna go grab lunch before we hunt her down?"

"It's barely ten-thirty." So why was it so hot?

"Yeah, but it'll take us about half an hour to - "

Dean stopped suddenly. A very faint tremor had just run under their feet, shaking the ground subtly. Sam doubted that anyone who either wasn't a hunter or hadn't been waiting for the tremor had actually felt it. They were both silent for several seconds, as the dachshund down the street began barking furiously, and then Dean started to look around.

"What the he - "

This time, he was interrupted by a shrill and blaring siren that made both of them wince badly, bowing their heads and bending their knees a little in an instinctive effort to get away from the sound. Which stopped just as soon as it'd started. There was a period where everything was pristinely silent, except for the ringing in Sam's ears, and then the dachshund started barking with twice as much ferocity as it had before. He could see it running back and forth, frenzied, on its half-mowed lawn. He wondered where Jones had gone.

"Was that some kind of - of air raid siren? What the hell?"

Even if Sam hadn't been able to hear the tension in Dean's voice, like steel cables stretched taut and vibrating, he probably would have been able to guess that he was afraid. Since he was pressed tightly against his side, his body turned slightly so that he was standing directly between Sam and the direction that the siren had come from. Despite the intense heat. Sam thought about shaking him off, but didn't quite have the heart for it. If being overprotective made Dean feel better, good for him. He wouldn't get in the way of that.

"I...don't know," Sam admitted, shaking his head. He could hear people shouting in the distance. "Maybe it's something to do with the plant?"

"Well, shit..." Dean didn't seem to have much more input than that.

Sam turned (as much as he could, with Dean acting as his human shield) when he heard the rubbery sound of high-end tennis shoes smacking against the concrete. Jones was jogging towards them, and stopped when he was a few feet away. He eyed their position, but his expression was neutral, and he didn't say anything about it.

"I'm guessing that you two aren't staying on the island," he said. "You should get going. They just sent out a mass phone call, told everyone to be ready to evacuate. Something went wrong at the plant."

"You're kidding," Sam said blankly. Even though he'd suggested it, he couldn't quite believe that that was really what'd happened. Not with the all the safety measures that were installed in modern nuclear power plants.

"Nope. I thought you'd want to know." Jones turned to go back to his panicking dachshund, shaking his head. "It's like seventy-nine all over again."

Sam bit back a dry retort about Jones looking pretty damn young, if he actually remembered that. Once he was gone, he let Dean tug and nudge him into the car.

"Back to the room?" Dean asked tensely, twisting the key viciously in the ignition.

"We need to watch the news," Sam agreed with a firm nod.

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"It was an 'unforeseen complication,'" Sam said without looking up from his laptop, as Dean walked into the room with two sodas and a bag of burgers. "The tremor that we felt was about a hundred high-pressure water pipes bursting at once. They got everything under control, but it was a close call."

"Awesome," Dean muttered, setting Sam's soda (orange Fanta) and his two hamburgers, wrapped in parchment paper, well within his reach. "So...we gonna start sprouting extra arms?"

Sam was tired. So it took a massive effort of will on his part not to look up and start lecturing Dean on what Radiation actually did to a human body. Cancer. Burns. Missing hair. Nausea. Keloid scars. Radiation poisoning. He supposed that now wasn't really the time to educate his brother, and besides. It didn't really matter.

"No radiation was released," Sam assured Dean. "The island wasn't evacuated. They temporarily shut the reactor down, but they think that everything'll be repaired and running again in about a month."

Dean pulled out a chair and sat down across from Sam, his own dinner in front of him, then reached across the table and flipped the screen of Sam's laptop down. He picked it up and set it down on the floor, under the table.

"You're done with research for tonight," he told him firmly. Sam smirked a bit, glancing down at his hands as he unwrapped one of his burgers. "I mean it, Sammy. I don't want a repeat of last night, got it? You wanna kill yourself, there're ways out there that're a whole lot more fun than slaving over a computer twenty-four/seven."

"Okay...thanks for that. I guess." Sam lifted the hamburger to his mouth and took a bite. The bun was flat and stale, the meet flavorless. At least the veggies on it were pretty good. And, hey, at least it was hot and edible. "The plant's gonna be swarming with people. Workers, repair crew, safety inspectors, researchers, extra security, reporters, rubberneckers..."

"Huh," Dean said, before wrapping his lips around the straw of his Coke in such a way that Sam was convinced he'd designed it specifically to mesmerize him. "So..." He pulled his mouth off with a satisfied sigh. "I'm guessing that we're not gonna be able to go and look around that abandoned reactor tonight, huh?"

Sam snorted. "Even if things hadn't gone straight to hell today and we _could_ sneak in, I really doubt that we'd find anything useful. What kinda clue could tell us what this thing is?"

"Feathers, maybe," Dean said, before taking a bite out of one of his cheeseburgers that was large enough to make Sam's own jaws ache. "Or a nest."

"Well, both of those would make me think that it was a lone harpy," Sam pointed out. Harpies traditionally flocked, but attempting to live side-by-side with humans tended to change the habits of most monsters. "But it's obviously not."

"Seems like it is," Dean countered. "I mean, Jones said that it looked like a big bird. What else do we know of that fits that description?"

"Jones also said that it flew around one of the reactors." Sam lifted the bun of his burger and hooked out a ring of purple onion, slathered in condiments, with his index finger. He passed it across the table to Dean, who took a bite out of it. "The same reactor that malfunctioned today. Harpies don't make pipes full of coolant water burst..." He went back to his burger, which was now perfect. "And I couldn't find anything on the internet that matched its description."

"Nothing?" Dean asked, raising an eyebrow as he swallowed the last of the onion.

"Nothing that matched perfectly." Sam fell silent, as something occurred to him. A part of his mind that he never ventured into voluntarily twitched, and it almost made him wince. "I wish..." He stopped, and swallowed hard, as if trying to push a stone into his stomach. "I really wish..." And he still couldn't spit it out. But Dean was looking at him so patiently. "I wish Dad were here." The words came out like bullets from a machine gun. "He'd know what it was."

Dean studied him for a second or two - not actually long enough to make Sam uncomfortable, even though he was looking at him with surprise and unsettlement. Like he'd just started talking about something he hadn't expected or wanted him to know. But when he spoke, his voice was totally normal, as if Sam hadn't just acted weird as all hell.

"Well, the first thing I did when he dropped off the face of the Earth was go and talk to his friends," Dean said. "All of 'em that I could track down, at least. They didn't have any idea where he'd gone, but they still know their shit, so I wouldn't be surprised if one or two of them could help us out."

"Okay," Sam agreed with a nod, relieved to have a new resource at his disposal. "So." He spread his hands. "Caleb, or Pastor Jim - "

"Uh. No," Dean interrupted. He took another bite of the cheeseburger in his hand, and Sam's mind flicked back to the psychology class that he'd taken, pulling up phrases like "stalling technique" and "avoidance strategy." "I don't...I just really don't think that that'd be a good idea."

Sam frowned, and opened his mouth to ask him why. Not to mention argue about the fact that this was probably their best bet bet, since Caleb and Pastor Jim were the men their lone wolf father had most often hunted with. He couldn't imagine why he'd be so skittish about going to talk to either one of them, unless he'd really pissed them off a few weeks ago - they were friends of the family, after all. But then again, Dean had a glorious talent for really pissing people off.

But he closed his mouth again almost as soon as he'd gotten it open. He could easily remember all the times (well, maybe not _all_ , but _most_ , at least) that Dean had let him shy away and wrestle with his own psyche without saying a word about how strange it was.

Just like practically draping himself over Sam made Dean feel better when they were in danger, it made Sam himself feel better to pretend that what they had was a normal, healthy relationship in which normal, healthy things happened - instead of a freakishly-dependent incestuous tryst. So he would give in return for what he'd taken.

"Okay," he repeated. He even nodded again. "Who are we gonna go talk to, then? Or...do you have another idea?" He kept his voice pleasant, even though the prospect of Dean rejecting an idea that he'd brought up himself was extremely frustrating.

Dean considered for a moment, then sighed heavily and shrugged. "Guess we're gonna need to talk to Bobby Singer."


	20. Chapter Twenty

Sam groaned as Dean shoved at him, a sound that very nearly broke his heart, but he held firm. Trying to push him up so that he was sitting on the bed instead of sprawled bonelessly on it, Dean rolled his eyes when his younger brother rolled over in order to face him and took hold of his hand to stop him. His face had settled into a petulant, bitchy expression that Dean recognized from their teenage years.

"Cut it out," Sam complained, but his voice was soft, as if he didn't want to risk popping the bubble of comfort that still surrounded them. "What's wrong with you?"

"I toldja to get outta here," Dean replied, with the half-shrug that was all he could manage while laying down. "Cuddle time's over. We need to get back to work." The work, mostly research-related, that Dean had been kept from for about an hour now. He'd sat down on the bed for a second, clenching his jaw when the ancient springs creaked beneath his weight, and then Sam had been next to him, leaning silently into his chest. He'd had no choice but to set everything aside and give Sam the break that he obviously needed - but there was no way that Dean would ever go so far as to say that cuddling with Sam had been a waste of time. "It's dinnertime, and you can go grab that, since I got lunch. And I need to call Bobby - which I can't do with you draped over me like a blanket."

They'd briefly discussed actually driving across the vast distances that separated Three Mile Island and Sioux Falls, to talk to Bobby Singer in person. Sam had advocated that idea for two reasons that Dean had to admit were pretty solid. One: Bobby's house was the closest thing to an official hunter's library that they and their scattered, sparse community had. His impressive collection of books would allow them to do their own personal research, and since Dean knew all about the hard-on that Sam had for books, he guessed that he was just about drooling at that prospect. And two: their family hadn't exactly been on great terms with Bobby for a few years now. Their last meet-up had ended with him chasing their father off of his property with a loaded shotgun. If they showed up in person and apologized, they'd have a much greater chance of weaseling their way into his home.

But South Dakota was twenty hours away and they couldn't leave this place. Not when the thing that they were hunting had just almost blown up a nuclear reactor and put millions of people in potential danger. So Dean was calling.

Sam sighed a little, letting go of Dean's hand and sitting up on the edge of the bed so that he could retie the laces of one of his tennis shoes. At least, Dean thought that that was what he was doing. "Yeah, okay. I guess you're right." Dean smirked. Sam had always been a sucker for a logical argument.

"Attaboy," he praised, spreading out on their bed and lacing his fingers together behind his head. Sam's spine brushed against one of his elbows as he moved, and a simple thrill went through him. "Knew you wouldn't really wanna spend the rest of the night Velcroed to me. I mean, you were so gung-ho about research before."

"I didn't think we'd be like that for so long," Sam replied as he glanced over his shoulder at Dean. There was a hint of guilt in his voice, which was apparently contagious, because Dean felt bad as soon as he heard it. "I just wanted a few minutes. I was...tired."

Dean understood. Sam's batteries needed a recharge - and not just his physical ones. A compromised reactor, uncooperative witnesses, an unknown monster, fruitless research, and, of course, the weird little episodes that he was still going through...that would tire anyone out. Dean had always been able to lift stress right out Sam's lanky frame when they were younger. He was happy to see that, obviously, he still had that ability.

"Well, if it made you feel better, then the time really doesn't matter," Dean replied with a shrug. "What've you got in mind for dinner?"

"Vegetarian," Sam said with a smirk, standing up and heading towards the door. He caught the Impala's keys effortlessly when Dean lobbed them. "You're gonna eat something green if it kills you."

"Hey, there was lettuce on the burger that I had for lunch," Dean mock-complained. "And if anything happens to that car, I'll skin you to make seat covers." Normally, he would've insisted on going himself, but they'd already decided that Dean should be the one to call Bobby and that he should do it while Sam was out of the room. Their relationship was different now than it had been when the two of them had stayed at his house while their dad hunted, and they didn't want anything to show up in Dean's voice that could clue him in to the fact that there was something going on between them. They both remembered him being scarily perceptive.

Just like Caleb and Pastor Jim were - must be a common trait of people who hunted things that went "bump" in the night. And they had both seen Dean pretty recently. They knew exactly how he acted without Sam anywhere near him. So if the two of them showed up, all smiles and affectionate touches, then there was no way they wouldn't figure it out. That was why he'd shot down his own idea almost as soon as he'd voiced it; he was too afraid of being found out.

Sure, Dad already knew, but that didn't mean that anybody else had to.

"Even that was kind of a miracle for you, and you know it," Sam said. He headed towards the door, as Dean finally stood up and grabbed his main cell phone off of the nightstand. "I'll be back soon."

"Love you," Dean replied, without thinking it over first. It'd been a reflexive kind of thing to say, but he still tensed up as soon as he'd said it. Sure, Sam's rules had relaxed away into near nothingness after he'd broken up with Jess. That didn't mean that Dean was allowed to say stuff like that, though.

Sam blinked, one hand on the doorknob and the keys dangling from the other, and appeared to hesitate. Dean couldn't tell what he was thinking, since he could only see part of his face. But Sam turned to him, and all his apprehension dissolved as he smiled and said, "Prove it."

Dean laughed, just as delighted by that as he had been by Sam calling him a jerk for the first time since they'd met back up. Maybe more so. It only took a couple of strides for him to close the distance between them in the small room, and then Sam was in his arms, mouth smiling against his Dean's own, silky hair tumbling down over the hand that he was using to cup the back of his head and stabilize him. His other hand was in the middle of Sam's back, and he definitely knew better than to let it slip any lower than that. He didn't quite understand what'd happened (Dad had promised that he wouldn't talk to Sam, after all), but Sam was all skittish now, and he had to be gentle with him.

Sam broke the kiss and turned his face away after a little over a minute. He spread his hands out against Dean's chest, but didn't push. Dean loosened his grip on him.

"All right," Sam said. He sounded pretty chipper, but Dean had seen him through too many of these panic attacks to be fooled by that. "I think I need to stop now." He stepped back, out of Dean's embrace, and Dean let him. "I should go, and you should call Bobby. We need to solve this."

"See you in a bit," Dean replied. He couldn't help but notice that, in addition to the usual tension in Sam's voice that came with this, it almost sounded like he was angry at himself for having fun when the situation was so serious. His baby brother should be canonized.

Once Sam was gone, Dean locked the door behind him, then looked down at the phone in his hand. He chewed slowly on his lower lip as he moved to dial.

_I love you._

_Prove it._

Calling Bobby could wait for a couple of minutes. He had a few too many memories to sort through right now to be able to carry on a normal conversation.

**Early June, 1996**

Her name was Madison Everett, and she'd been a pain in Dean's ass since his first day at this godforsaken rural school.

That had been in mid-April, when his dad had uprooted him and Sammy from the wine-centric community in northern California that they'd been living in since January and dumped them in Montana. Dean had bitched as much as he'd thought he'd be able to without getting smacked, but it'd all been on Sammy's behalf. The poor kid had been totally freaking out because he had less than a month of school left in that particular district, and they were getting ready for finals. Dean himself hadn't particularly cared. It was just another school, another year he'd barely pass, and another change of scenery. This time it was from vineyards to cows, which was sort of interesting, but not really.

At least, he hadn't particularly cared until he met Madison.

There were two hundred kids at Sammy's middle school, and three hundred at Dean's high school. The two of them stuck out like sore thumbs, for the most part. Dean's twang was a little richer than that of everyone around him, which marked him as a Southerner (because freaking everything was south of Montana, apparently), and his leather jacket was a lone spot of worn brown in a sea of flannel and denim. Sammy wore sneakers as opposed to the cowboy boots of his classmates, was interested in school instead of farming and hunting deer and (hell, Dean didn't know) drag-racing tractors, and talked without any kind of accent at all because of a concentrated effort on his part. They were surrounded by kids who came from ranches and farms - and a small group of girls who probably came from the exact same places but definitely didn't look it.

Madison was one of those. And even if some big, friendly kid named Clinton in Dean's European History class hadn't told him that she was basically the school whore, he probably could've figured it out on his own. Big hair, short skirt, high heels, push-up bra, cheap perfume, enough makeup to stop a bullet: blond, freckled Madison, tottering precariously through the halls and laughing obnoxiously whenever she got called to the office for a dress code violation. She looked like a caricature of a prostitute from the seventies. But it must work, because Dean didn't know a single guy who wouldn't freely admit to having been at least sucked off by her.

Five of Dean's seven classes had her in them. In first period, she sat right next to him, probably intrigued because he was new - which the teacher had called him out on within the first five minutes. She put a hand on his thigh, squeezing and rubbing, and leaned in so that her breath puffed teasingly against his ear and jaw. It smelled like bubble gum and Cheerios.

"So...I don't think I've ever seen you before," she purred. Or, well, tried to purr. Dean was pretty familiar with proper purring, since Sammy did it all the time while in bed or being held by him. Madison wasn't all that great at seduction.

"Ain't that interesting," Dean deadpanned, taking hold of her hand - with its tacky French tips, badly glued on - and dropping it into her own lap.

A look of pure shock popped onto her heavily-obscured face when he did that, and it took a couple of days for him to erase it from his mind. Her clumsy advances had probably never been rejected like this before, so after that first day, she came at him like a werewolf in heat. She asked him where he'd come from, he just said California, and she asked if he'd ever had sex on the beach. She muscled her way into being his lab partner in Biology, and every time he did anything, she made a lewd comment about his hands or the calluses on them. She somehow found out that he'd turned seventeen in late January, which made him older than her, and assumed that that meant that he had a ton of sexual experience.

(He was so damn tempted to tell her that he was basically a virgin. Sure, he'd given and received hand- and blowjobs to and from Sammy, and eaten his little brother out more times than he could count, but they'd never had _sex_ sex.)

"I bet she just wants attention," Sammy murmured, shifting slightly on top of Dean. There wasn't much to do out here - there wasn't even a movie theater. Since their dad had taken the car for the case that he was currently working, the two of them couldn't do much besides spent time with each other in their room. Sammy had had a tough day at school. Kissing on top of their bed had escalated into an intense dry-humping session that had left them both satisfied and exhausted, and as they lay in a sweaty tangle, Dean had started complaining about Madison. "She doesn't care what kind it is, just so long as she feels like a guy likes her."

"How come she wants that?" Dean asked the ceiling, eyes half-lidded as he stared up at it. His fingertips trailed slowly down Sammy's spine, feeling it easily through the thin cotton of the hand-me-down T-shirt he was wearing. His little brother felt like a sack of dandelion fluff on his chest, no weight to him at all as Dean breathed in and out.

"I don't know...low self-esteem? Her dad ran off when she was little? Her parents don't pay much attention to her?" Sammy shrugged a little, and Dean smirked, sort of impressed by how worldly and intelligent he was. Especially for a seventh grader. "But the point's that it's not her fault that she's kind of a slut, or that she won't leave you alone. You should try and be nice to her."

"She's annoying as hell," Dean responded, rolling his eyes. He cupped a hand over Sammy's ass, and Sammy buried his face in his neck and - yeah, that was a _real_ purr. "And all she wants is for me to bang her."

"She just wants you to pay attention to her so that she can feel like she's worth something," Sammy replied. He pushed himself up onto his elbows, looking quizzically down at Dean, and asked, "Can we have ice cream for dinner?"

"Sure we can." Dad wasn't here - they could do whatever the hell they wanted to. Just so long as neither of them blabbed later. "And fine. I'll try to be nice to her. But I'm definitely not gonna take her on any pity dates, 'cause..." He leaned up, puckering his lips. He didn't quite manage to reach Sammy's mouth, but he kissed his nose, at least. "...I'm already taken."

He never really told Madison that, but he did take Sam's words to heart, since he usually gave some pretty damn good advice and Dean had learned to listen to him. He was polite with Madison, even when she did stuff that made his skin crawl or anger boil in his stomach. He didn't try to get rid of her like he had before. He just smirked at her when she asked when he was going to take her on a date. And, slowly, stuff started to pop through the slut act that she put on.

It turned out, for example, that Madison was actually pretty smart. Like, Sammy smart. She didn't get good grades because she chose to run around with the entire male population of the high school instead of doing homework, but with this new fixation on Dean, they started to slowly perk up. And so did his own. Gym and study hall were the only classes he didn't have her in, so she was sitting next to him in all of his core classes. In the back of the room, so that the teacher couldn't see him slacking off and her coming onto him. The come-ons slowly changed into helpful suggestions about his work, though, and she was pretty much tutoring him in the back of the room, and Dean's GPA was suddenly higher than it had been since elementary school.

Dean got a better look at Madison. It was easier for him to actually see her when she was hunched over his math worksheet than it was when she was leaning on his desk in a way that made her breasts all but spill out of her shirt. Speaking of breasts, she actually didn't need a push-up bra for hers. They were big, well-shaped, and Dean, completely comfortable with his bisexuality, liked them a whole lot. He regretted it when he let it slip (that she didn't need the bra, not that he had a thing for her tits), at first, because that deer-in-the-headlights look of shock showed up again. But the next day, she walked into first period wearing a sports bra and looking pretty comfortable about it. And that was what launched Dean's campaign to single-handedly make over Madison Everett.

Sammy helped. Sammy helped a lot. In fact, Sammy was practically the mastermind behind the whole thing, after Dean told him about what'd happened with the bra. Well, after he got past a few insecurities.

"D'you...like boobs?" Sammy asked hesitantly, reaching up to spread his hands over his chest as he glanced down at it.

"I like everything," Dean replied. He flopped down on their bed and kicked his boots off.

"D'you wish I had boobs?" Sammy asked, reaching down to unlace his shoes.

"I'd like it if you had boobs," Dean replied. He pushed himself up and looked at Sammy. "I mean, I definitely wouldn't complain. But I like your little pecs, too." He laid back down as Sammy clambered onto the mattress with an armful of textbooks. "D' _you_ like boobs?"

"I don't know." Sam's sexuality was about the same as it had been last year.

They had a discussion every night, about what Dean had noticed that day and what he'd say tomorrow. Madison's makeup was thick enough to scrape off with a palette knife, but she wasn't bad-looking underneath all of it. He mentioned that to her. She was tall enough not to need high heels, and she'd walk a whole lot smoother without them. He told her that. Her natural hair color was extremely attractive, and it'd come through a whole lot better if she used less product. Shorts would accentuate her legs and ass a lot better (and a lot more classily) than skirts did. Whatever deodorant she used smelled so good that she probably didn't even need to wear perfume. That was why Sammy's very first glimpse of Madison was of a version in ballet flats, lip gloss, knee-length jean shorts, and a low, shimmering ponytail.

The middle school got out ten minutes before the high school, for reasons that Dean didn't expect to ever understand, so it made more sense for Sammy to jog over and wait for Dean than to have Dean come and pick him up. Sammy was a little late that day, Madison decided to wait with Dean, and, apparently, she had never heard about him having a brother before. He couldn't believe that. Even if a person didn't know anything at all about him, they knew about Sammy.

"She doesn't look that bad," Sammy commented, as they walked home. Dean snorted.

"She looks about a million times better than she did a month ago," he replied. "And she's still annoying as hell."

Sammy hitched his backpack higher onto his shoulders, and scowled up at Dean, complaining, "You're being mean. And you said she was helping you with stuff - isn't she your friend?"

"I don't know," Dean said. It was the only thing he could say. He didn't have friends - he just had Sammy.

"Maybe you should go over to her house for a study session or something," Sam suggested. Dean grimaced. He'd heard plenty of rumors about the place that Madison lived in, and even the most realistic-sounding ones weren't place he wanted to visit. Or that he thought Madison'd want to take him. She'd never suggested going back to her house for sex. Always Dean's place, or the park, or the girls' bathroom in the north wing. Which was why he replied, "Maybe not."

"Then...have her come to our room."

It took Dean a few moments to realize what Sam had just said, and when he did, he looked at him with a shocked expression that was probably pretty similar to Madison's. Seriously? Their room? He couldn't believe that Sammy would seriously allow an outsider - a girl, no less - into their room. It was his sanctuary, the only place, as he had told Dean, that he truly felt safe and like he could be himself. What if Madison sat down on their bed? What if she laid back in the exact place that Dean had actually made Sammy cry with pleasure, using his tongue and his fingers? She could destroy the purity that their relationship (fundamentally wrong as it was) had somehow managed to keep and she wouldn't even have to think about it. Sammy couldn't have thought that statement through.

But it turned out that he had, and so Dean ended up bringing Madison home to help him study for a math test. Turned out that she was tactful as well as smart. She didn't once ask where their parents were, or why only one of their beds looked like it'd been slept in, which made Dean wonder if she thought that the two of them were the only family they had. She and Sammy took an immediate liking to each other, which wasn't hard for Dean to see. And all of Madison's pleas for sex and awkward innuendos totally vanished after that night. Dean got a low B on the test, too.

It was getting close to the end of school now. Dad had called last night and said that the hunt was dragging on, so he'd have to leave them there awhile longer. Sam was stressing about finals, but Dean could unwind him and get him ready for a solid nine hours of sleep with only a couple well-placed touches. And Madison, a completely different girl now than she had been when Dean had first met her, was starting to feel a little more like family than just another civilian. That was what he was thinking about when she grabbed his hand after seventh period one day and dragged him out of the river of kids heading for the parking lot.

"What's up?" Dean asked amiably, letting himself be dragged. Sam was likely still on his way to the high school, so he didn't really mind this diversion.

"I wanna show you something, Dean," Madison said, shooting a quick smile over her shoulder and brushing away a strand of hair that had escaped from her loose braid. He smiled back. She was leading him towards the eastern part of the school, where the art classroom was. Since she was in there when he was in study hall, and didn't really have any natural talent for it, he assumed that she wanted him to see a project that she'd just finished and sympathize with her over the terrible grade she'd gotten on it. It'd happened before.

"Okay, but we gotta be quick," he warned. Their footsteps echoed loudly in the empty school - his heavy boots and her water-stained tennis shoes slapping against the linoleum. "Sammy'll be waiting for me."

"He'll be fine for a few minutes, won't he?" she asked. Just like he'd expected, she pulled him into the art room. Ms. Gauss had already left, which was pretty much par for the course; most of the teachers tended to take off as soon as they could, if a kid hadn't explicitly asked for help after school.

Dean looked around, but didn't see anything that looked new. There were pinatas hanging from the ceiling, paintings and sketches on the walls, and clay sculptures on the counter that ran around the room. He could easily pick out Madison's mediocre pieces, since he'd seen them all before.

His attention flicked back to her, as she turned to him and clasped his hand with both of her own. She squeezed, walking backwards and pulling him further into the darkened classroom, then ducked her chin in order to grin shyly up at him. He blinked, realizing that she was...Jesus, she was actually _flirting_. Normal-flirting, not the slut-flirting that she'd tried on him before. Her teeth ran, gently, over her bottom lip, not disturbing her lip gloss, and Dean swallowed uncomfortably.

It wasn't like this was a new thing for him. He was attractive, he was fairly witty, and the "bad boy" vibe that he gave off made certain girls drool over him. For whatever inexplicable reason. But he never would've expected Madison to try and flirt with him. Maybe he was just...misreading the signals that she was sending him.

"What'd you wanna show me?" he asked, since he couldn't really think of anything else to say. Madison smiled again, casting her eyes down at her shoes, then looking up at him through her eyelashes and letting go of his hand with one of hers. She reached for his free one then, so that she was holding both of his hands.

"This." She kissed him.

It wasn't like it happened all of a sudden. He knew that it was coming, and he could've moved out of the way if he wanted to. She scooted forward, taking her time, and then popped her heels off of the ground. She squeezed his hands and pulled them down, and then looked him dead in the eye before pressing her lips to his. Her gloss tasted vaguely like beeswax. Throughout the kiss, Dean was wondering if she'd been watching a whole bunch of cheap rom-coms with annoyingly-perky heroines, and if that was where she'd learned how to do all of this.

He didn't really kiss back, which he could tell confused her, but he didn't push her away. When she was done, he opened his eyes, and knew that he'd made the right choice by letting her kiss him: her face was wide-open and vulnerable. She looked like a china doll under a hammer.

"...ohhh," Dean said. He let go of Madison's hands, but she didn't let go of his. "Okay. _That_. Right." He wasn't angry or annoyed or offended, and he wanted her to understand that. He just wasn't...interested. "Listen, Maddie - "

"I screwed up, didn't I?" she interrupted. Her voice was too loud, her eyes too wide. Dean recognized the signs of panic. "I've kissed a ton of guys, but never like that. Never sweet. Did I push too hard?"

"No," Dean said, and that was the only word that he got in before Madison was babbling again.

"Then what'd I do wrong? Why didn't you like it?" Her accent threw an extra "y" sound into "it." "Should I've put flavored lip gloss on during lunch? Is that something you're into? Would that've made it better?"

"No," Dean said firmly. He shook his hands free, and placed them on Madison's shoulders. He realized she was shaking a little. "I'm not interested in this."

"Why the hell aren't you?" Madison demanded. "Am I not pretty enough? Am I too smart? Casey Powers wouldn't go out with me freshman year 'cause he said I was too smart."

"What? No. Look, that doesn't bother me." Dean shook his head, frustrated.

"Are you gay, then?" Madison was smart, and pretty nice, but she had still been raised in rural Montana, so there was a lot of scorn in her voice. At least she hadn't accused him of being a fag. That word had been hurled at studious, quiet Sammy a few too many times for him not to reflexively punch anyone who used it around the two of them.

"No! Jeez." Dean sighed. I just don't really wanna do anything like that with you. "I don't wanna think about you like that. I like being your friend." And he was taken so completely that he might as well have had "Property of Sammy" tattooed across his forehead. But Madison didn't need to know that.

She looked down between them, and then stepped back, so that his hands slipped off of her shoulders. He let her go. For a second, he thought that she was about to burst into tears and run away, which he really didn't want to happen. But then she started talking, quietly.

"You didn't like me when I was all dressed up," she began, "and you don't like me now, with all of that fancy stuff gone. What've I gotta do, Dean?"

"You do realize that a guy can like you without wanting to have sex with you, right?" As soon as the words were out of his mouth, Dean realized that, actually, she probably didn't realize that.

"But you're a _guy_ , and so if you're not even a little bit attracted to me, then something's gotta be wrong," Madison argued. Dean rolled his eyes.

"Would it make you feel better if I said that you had nice tits?" he asked dryly. "'Cause, actually, they are pretty nice. I can see why everyone in the school's banged you."

"No!" Oh, great. Now she really was crying - maybe he shouldn't have tossed that last part in there. "It wouldn't make me feel better. I _want_ you to - I wanna feel like - "

She trailed off into angry, confused sputtering, and Dean folded his arms over his chest to feign patience, feeling like he was weathering one of the tantrums that Sammy had loved to throw a few years back. Speaking of Sammy, he had to be wondering just where the hell his older brother was. Dean should really try to wrap this up as quickly and diplomatically as possible.

"What d'you want me to do?" he asked, shaking his head slowly as he looked at Madison. "I don't...I really didn't mean to make you cry."

Madison sniffed, and moved back towards him by one step. "I really, really like you, Dean. I have for awhile...I want you to like me, too."

"I do like you," Dean assured, spreading his hands. Madison just shook her head. More hair came out of her braid.

"No, I...Dean, I want you to make me feel special. Like you have for the past month - you and your brother. But - different, this time, if you understand what I'm saying..." She sucked her lower lip into her mouth and began chewing on it. "You don't even have to fuck me, and things can go right back to normal after. I just wanna know that you like me."

Dean hesitated. He could give this a lot more thought than he'd been able to the last time that a girl had kissed him, since he was sober now. Would pity-kissing Madison count as cheating on Sam? Betraying him? Maybe it wouldn't. He didn't feel any deep physical attraction to her, after all, and she'd said that they could just go back to being friends after he gave her what she wanted from him.

His thoughts were interrupted (and his resolve weakened past the point of no return) when Madison asked, "You're my friend, right, Dean? My best friend?"

He sighed through his nose, then stepped forward, so that there was barely two inches of space between them. He slipped a loose arm around Madison's waist in order to hold her against him, then cupped the back of her head with his free hand. He didn't feel any excitement, or love. It wasn't like when he was gearing up to kiss Sammy. But Madison was smiling like she'd just won the lottery, so that was enough for him to keep going.

Madison may have looked like someone's naive stereotype of a prostitute in the beginning, and her attempts at seduction had all the subtlety of a wrecking ball slamming into a building, but once things got fully physical, she definitely knew what she was doing. She somehow got Dean's mouth open without him even realizing what was happening, and moaned softly into the wet cavern of it. She slipped her tongue in, tangling it with his; she didn't really taste like anything, and he remembered that she'd skipped lunch that day in order to help him finish up his math homework. That was in Dean's mind when she began to rock her hips against his, more pleading than suggestive, so he picked up her rhythm and rolled with it.

They had to break every once in awhile to breathe, and every time that Madison came back, it was with more heat. She grabbed his ass, digging her painted fingernails into it through the thick denim of his jeans. Dean thought of himself as a pretty decent guy, loyal to his brother and at least average at keeping his impulses under control, but he was seventeen and male and he wasn't made of stone. So he couldn't stop his cock from beginning to rise against Madison's stomach. That made her giggle breathlessly into his mouth, and push herself closer.

He tried to keep an image of Sammy in his mind, thirteen and just barely heading into puberty, eyes half-lidded and mouth stretched into a sleepy smile as he lay sprawled on their bed after one of their more intimate sessions. Then he let it go with a mental sigh. He didn't need that to reign himself in - in fact, he wasn't sure that he needed to reign himself in at all. Was it cheating if you didn't feel anything while you were doing it? He was just...being nice here. Trying to be a good friend, which was sorta difficult for him, since he'd never really had one before. It wasn't like he actually wanted to use this to tear his relationship with Sammy apart, and it wasn't like he was gonna keep on doing things like this with Madison when they were done here. It was a one-time deal. He was fine. So he might as well try to enjoy himself, show Madison that she really did know her stuff and was definitely worth being interested in.

He'd take Sammy straight home once he was done, and spend the whole night worshiping him. The two things would cancel each other out.

Dean pushed Madison up against the blackboard, after walking them both across the classroom for several minutes. He knew that he'd be getting chalk dust all over her clothes, but that came off pretty easily, and this gave him a much better angle. Especially when she used the little shelf beneath the board to sort of perch, shoving her ass onto it and spreading her legs. They were pretty much grinding by this point, and so now the bulge in Dean's pants was pressed against the soft swell of...whatever the hell she had down there. He'd seen drawings, a couple of grainy, blurry pictures, but nothing specific enough to give him a perfect idea of what a pussy looked like or how one worked. He must have been doing pretty good in spite of his cluelessness, though, because there was a warm, wet heat coming from between her legs, and she'd started to moan fairly loudly into their kisses.

"You're right on my clit," Madison panted as they broke, noses touching, in order to suck in air. Dean knew what that was, at least. It was like the girl prostate. "Oh, my god, Dean." She lifted one leg. Dean took hold of her thigh, hesitated as he thought about what to do with it, then lifted it over his hip. Her calf pressed against his ass. "You make me so wet."

Dean didn't say anything in response to that. He guessed that it was pretty good that he turned her on. He was turned on, too, but he was pretty sure that it wasn't the same; it was just physical pleasure for him. There wasn't any anticipation, or meaning. It was nothing at all like it was when Sam's small hands or mouth were wrapped around his cock, and Dean thought that he might be starting to understand the difference between having sex and making love.

When was this gonna end? Sammy had to be totally freaking out by now. They'd kissed and touched plenty, but Madison didn't show signs of getting tired of dry-humping with him anytime soon. As if to prove his point, she reached for his hand almost as soon as he'd thought it, and put it on her left breast.

"You can take my bra off, if you want," she whispered, as Dean squeezed appreciatively through the fabric and padding. She really did have nice tits - firm, perfect globes. "I'm wearing one with a front clasp today. To make it easier."

"That's okay," Dean replied. He'd really prefer to keep all their clothes on. It just felt a little less...dirty, that way.

"Don't you wanna touch me?" She pulled him closer and tugged on his lower lip with her teeth. "Don't you wanna get me naked? See what I look like under all this?"

He didn't say that, with how she'd been dressing when he first met her, there wasn't a whole lot left to the imagination. Instead, he replied, "Sure, but we're at _school_. You really wanna get caught screwing in here?"

"There's nobody here," Madison all but snapped, and, well, Dean had to give her that. "And since when do you care about the rules in this place? I've seen what's in your backpack."

She had? Dammit. He must have gotten sloppy, for her to have seen the handgun and butterfly knife and metal flask of holy water (but she'd probably thought that there was some kind of booze in there) that he kept in one pocket of his beat-up backpack.

"I'm not gonna take your clothes off," Dean said firmly, leaning back a little so that he could make eye contact with Madison, "and I'm not gonna have sex with you. You said that I didn't have to."

"What're you afraid of?" Madison demanded. "I won't bite." She smirked, reaching down between them in order to fiddle with the button on her shorts. "Just so long as you don't make me come too hard."

"You want me to make you come?" The question wasn't enthusiastic or playful, even though that was probably how Madison interpreted it. Coming was different for girls than it was for guys, and it took longer. He wasn't really looking forward to wasting more time, and making Sammy wait even longer.

"Uh-huh." Madison smiled, coyly, and undid her button. "Just rub my clit. And..." She nodded to the hand on her breast. "Keep rubbing that, too."

Dean squeezed, then leaned in to kiss her, putting it off. She moaned his name, bucking against him. He dropped his hand to the mouth of her shorts, working his way slowly downwards, and Madison whined when his fingertips touched cornsilk hair - but she shut up the second that he froze. More because of what had made him stop than the stopping itself.

A strangled, heartbroken little cry had come from the doorway of the room. Dean had heard it even over all of the noise that Madison was making because his brain had been hardwired, for years, to pick that voice out of anywhere. He jerked his hands out of Madison's pants and off of her breast before turning to look at the doorway. He felt like he was about to pass out, his hands and feet aching and tingling, and his mouth was open slightly in horror.

Sammy was standing there, shoulders slumped like something had broken them with a single blow. His shaggy brown hair hung into his eyes, which were a muddy gray-brown right now, and blurred shiny with tears. His cheeks were covered with wetness, like he'd been frozen there, crying silently, for awhile now. His backpack was on the floor next to him, one strap held loosely in his hand. Dean took all of that in in under a second. A heartbeat passed after that, and Dean felt like he was in a painting, one that captured a scene the second before everything went to hell.

And that was a pretty apt analogy, since Sammy's face was crumpling now. He let go of the backpack and bolted, breaking the spell. And the silence, with the gunshot-loud sounds of his sneakers slapping against the linoleum, every one of which went straight to Dean's heart. He didn't make any noise at all besides that - and maybe it would've been better if he had. Dean really would've preferred screaming and sobbing to this bone-crushing quiet.

He reached for his backpack, where he'd dropped it on the floor when he and Madison had started up. Slinging it over his shoulder, he strode over to Sam's bag, passing Madison as he did so. She'd pushed off of the blackboard and closed her shorts back up.

"Is he - ?" she started, sounding worried, but all of Dean's patience with her had been used up. He cut her off as he picked up Sam's small, heavy backpack, and kept going even while he was talking.

"He's real freaked out," Dean said shortly. "I need to go and talk to him."

"I...okay..." He was vaguely aware of Madison trailing after him, but she stopped just outside of the art room. "I'll...I'll see you tomorrow, okay?"

"Yep." Dean was going as fast as he could without actually running.

"Thank you."

Those two quiet words, hanging vulnerably in the air between him and her, made him sicker than the stench of decay ever had. All of a sudden, he had to get out of the school - he couldn't spend another second in here. He took off, bursting out of the doors and running down the sidewalk like he was in the last hundred yards of an Olympic race. Sammy was nowhere to be found, and the sun was too bright, drawing tears out of Dean's eyes that made the entire world look like a disco ball with fifteen different lights turned on it.

_Thank you._

He didn't deserve any gratitude. He wanted to walk under a torrent of ice-cold water, and scrub himself with steel wool and lye until his skin, the skin that had been pressed against Madison's, was all gone. Maybe then he'd feel clean.

Dean's legs were aching like someone had hammered railroad spikes into the muscles of his calves, and every breath that he sucked in felt like it was full of powdered glass, but he kept running.

Towards the motel.

Towards Sam.

**Early October, 2005**

Dean wrenched himself forcefully out of the memory, even though leaving off where he had felt a lot like leaving a piece of gravel embedded in his palm. Sam would be back soon, and even though he knew that he probably wouldn't say anything about the fact that he hadn't called and that he wouldn't mind standing outside while he finally got around to it, Dean didn't really want to admit to him that he'd spent thirty minutes messing around instead of doing what he was actually supposed to. With a sigh, he scrubbed a hand through his hair and started thumbing through his contacts. He hesitated on one of Dad's phones, then kept going, knowing that he wouldn't pick up no matter which one he called.

He firmly pressed the "call" button when he reached Bobby's number. Or, well, the number that Bobby was most likely to pick up at - every hunter kept a handful of phones for the purpose of anonymity. He was pretty sure that he'd plugged every single one of Bobby Singer's into his contacts, but he didn't really know why. Dad (and, by extension, Sam and Dean) had had a spectacular falling out with him way before Dean had ever gotten his first cell phone.

It rang twice after he pressed the phone to his ear, and then there was the click and crackle of someone picking up an old-fashioned wall-mounted telephone.

"Who is this?" Bobby asked, voice gruff and suspicious.

"Dean Winchester," Dean replied.

There was a beat of silence, and then a sigh. Dean heard fabric rustling in the background, like Bobby was sitting down, settling in for a long conversation.

"I figured I was gonna hear from you sooner or later," he said. "I'm sorry, son, but I don't know where John is. Haven't heard a peep from him in months."

"Yeah, I figured," Dean said. He was a little surprised by the fact that Bobby knew about Dad's disappearance, until he remembered exactly who he was talking to. Word traveled fast in the hunter community, mostly because it was so small, and every piece of news found its way to Bobby sooner or later. He was at the center of them all. "Thanks for letting me know." Even though that wasn't what he'd called to ask about, he was glad to know that there wasn't any information he'd been missing out on. "Didn't know you'd been...hearing from him, though. If I remember right, you guys don't really get along."

"Well, we didn't _talk_ ," Bobby admitted. "But I heard about what he was doing. I wouldn't've ignored him if he'd called me up - I don't hate him."

"You, uh," Dean began. This was not the conversation he'd imagined himself having with Bobby. "You ran him..." Us. "...off your property with a shotgun."

"Yeah, and he's the one who never came back," Bobby said dismissively. "Anyway. How you been? Besides... _that_ , I mean. Sounds like you're holding up pretty well."

"I'm fine." Dean thought about lying in bed with Sam, warmed outside by the heat of his brother's nearby body and inside by his frequent sighs of contentment. "I'm great, actually. Keeping busy. No major leads on where the hell Dad is yet, but I've got an eye out - doing hunts that seem like they'd be right up his alley."

"Good. Good idea." Bobby paused. "You didn't call me about him, though, did you?"

Dean smirked a little, reminded of just how sharp the older hunter was. While staying with him, either with their father or when he was off on a hunt that he would rather not involve them in, him and Sam had never been able to keep anything from him. He always found out.

Well, they'd kept one thing hidden, but considering that that was the secret that they both would've died to keep, it wasn't all that surprising.

"No," he admitted. "We're kinda stuck, on the hunt that we're on. We've got no idea what we're after."

There was another pause, then a skeptical, "We?" Because of course Dean would be hunting solo, since Dad was missing. Winchesters didn't partner with anyone who wasn't family. "Someone crown you queen, boy?"

Dean smirked again. "We. Me and Sam." Would Bobby know about Sam running off to college? Yeah, he would have to. He at least had to know that he'd been gone, since Dad had been unable to keep that from Caleb and Pastor Jim and it would have reached Bobby through them.

"Sam left school?" Bobby asked, and something about the way that he said it sent a wave of guilt crashing over Dean. He sighed, shoulders automatically slumping.

"Yeah...he's done with his undergrad stuff, so it won't hurt him to take some time off," Dean said. To him, it sounded like he was justifying what he'd done. He scrambled to change that. "I still feel bad about that. I kinda uprooted him, and dragged him back into something that he fought tooth and nail to get out of, but...I didn't have much of a choice." He heaved a sigh. "I couldn't do this on my own."

There was a fairly short period of silence (this conversation seemed to be riddled with those), and Dean imagined Bobby nodding in grudging understanding. Even though there was no way that he could know that he was doing it.

"So what's your problem?" he finally asked, changing the subject. Dean couldn't help but feel grateful that he'd gotten straight to the point instead of asking him more questions about Sam.

"Well, y'see, we're at Three Mile Island - " Dean started. Bobby swore, cutting him off.

"You two're involved in _that_ mess?" he asked. "Jesus. Why am I not surprised?"

Dean scowled. "It's not like it's our fault it blew up," he pointed out. "There's something else going on here. Some kind of creature. And we don't know what it is - that's why we decided to call you."

Bobby snorted, and said, "You couldn't've just missed me, huh? All right. Fill me in. All I've seen is what's been on the news, and they didn't say anything about a creature."

Dean swung his legs up onto the bed, getting comfortable as he launched into an account of everything that they'd learned so far. What all the witnesses had said, Cynthia Hu's theories on what was going on, the suspicious coincidence of the same reactor that their mystery monster had flown around malfunctioning so soon afterwards. Bobby only asked a few questions. One of them was about the bag of ash that Cynthia had showed them.

"What was it like?" he asked. Dean blinked, a little bewildered, but he'd been hunting long enough to know that anything and everything could be a clue.

"Just...ash," he said with a useless shrug. "Y'know. Gray. Soft. Sam wasn't so sure that it was ash, though," he added, remembering, all of a sudden, a couple of comments Sam had made.

"He's not?" Bobby asked. "How come?"

"Uh..." Dean searched his memory and hated himself a little for not paying much attention at the time. "He said that it was...glittery. Which, yeah, I guess it was, but ash can be glittery sometimes. He also said that it looked a little too fine to be ash. And - " He was just on a roll here. " - he said that it reminded him of something, but he wasn't sure what."

"Butterfly dust?"

"Huh?" Dean asked blankly.

"The powder that butterflies've got on their wings," Bobby clarified. "I know you've played with butterflies before. Caught about fifty when you two stayed here in '90. Filled your whole room with the jars."

Dean was mildly surprised that Bobby had brought that up, and even more surprised that he remembered it. It'd been fifteen years, after all. But Dean was remembering it himself now, everything coming back to him with startling vividness.

They'd visited a butterfly house in...Illinois? Yeah, it'd been Illinois. They'd gone in February, a field trip for their elementary school, and when they got home, Sam had said that he wanted to live someplace like that, which was why they'd spent most of their summer at Bobby's catching butterflies. Most of the ones that they got their hands on were small, white or lemon yellow, but they got lucky with some painted ladies, a couple of monarchs, and one huge yellow one with black zebra stripes on its wings. Not knowing what it was had driven Sam crazy. They'd put all the jars in their room and taken the best care of them that they could. Small sponges soaked with sugar water, fresh flowers every day. The butterflies had lived for weeks and watched them loving each other every night. Sam cried when Dad said that they couldn't take any of them with them.

"I don't know," Dean said. "Maybe. He's not around for me to ask him right now - ran out to grab dinner."

"Doesn't particularly matter, I guess," Bobby said. "I know what you're dealing with."

Dean barely managed to keep from sighing with relief. This would definitely help Sam to relax: knowing exactly what they were up against. "'Bout time. What?"

"Mothman," Bobby replied. Dean waited for him to elaborate, but he didn't.

"Is that some kinda superhero?" he asked uncertainly.

"No!" Bobby snorted, before tacking on a derisive, "Idjit. The Mothman legends date back to the sixties. People saw something exactly like what you just described to me right before the Silver Bridge collapsed, and they've been spotted a couple of other places since. Popular belief is that there's more than one."

"So they cause disasters," Dean said grimly. "It can't be good to have one hanging around a nuclear power pla - "

"They don't cause disasters," Bobby interrupted. Dean could practically hear him shaking his head.

"But you just said - "

"They show up in places where bad things are gonna happen," Bobby explained, pretty much bulldozing over Dean's voice with his own. "They sense it somehow, and then they come. Like moths show up when you light a candle." Something crackled annoyingly on the line. "They're omens, not causes. Lightning storms don't summon demons."

"So..." An unpleasant realization welled up. "...it's harmless."

"Yep," Bobby agreed.

"We don't have to take it out."

"Considering what happened today, I'd bet that your mothman's already moved on by now," Bobby told him. Dean lifted a heavy hand and rubbed, hard, at his eyes, groaning.

"Then we just wasted about three days on this goddamn island," he said. "Great."

"Well, hey, you didn't know," Bobby pointed out. "Might've, though, if you'd done some research."

"We did do research," Dean replied. "Sam did a ton of research...and you know how good he is at it." Sam had always had a real knack for finding exactly what he needed, whether it be in books or on the internet. His time in college could only have honed his skills.

"Hm," Bobby said. Dean saw him shrugging in agreement. "Well, it's not that popular of a legend, I guess. Not that it matters now...anything else you wanna ask me while you've got me on the phone?"

"Nope," Dean said. He would've asked about his dad, but Bobby had asked that question before he could even think of it. "Thanks for your help, though...really appreciate it. I'm not sure what he would've done without you."

"Don't mention it," Bobby said, with a gruff tone that Dean recognized. "Tell your brother I said hi, all right?"

"Sure," Dean agreed. He was a little disappointed that the conversation seemed to be wrapping up, since he'd always found Bobby's company pretty enjoyable even over the phone, but he couldn't think of anything to keep it going.

"And if you're ever in my corner of the country," Bobby added, "I'd sure like to see you two."

Dean smiled. "Yeah. Of course." Of course they could - their father was nowhere to be seen, so whatever stupid feud had kept them out of South Dakota for years didn't matter anymore. He was sure that Sam would be just fine with visiting Bobby, since his house was the closest thing they had ever come to having a permanent home. And...Bobby probably still thought of them as the gangly almost-teenagers that they'd been the last time he saw them. He'd never seen them as men. So it'd be interesting to visit him again.

There were a couple of awkward, muttered goodbyes (they were both products of what they did for a living) after that, and then Dean took the initiative and hung up. He wasn't really sure how to feel about the hunt right now. On one hand, they knew what it was now, so Sam wouldn't be up all night with his eyes superglued to his laptop screen. But on the other, they'd wasted time here, just like he'd said before. He guessed that Sam wouldn't exactly be thrilled about that.

Dean couldn't quite focus on that, though, as disappointing as it was. He just couldn't quite thinking about those butterflies. He hadn't thought about them in years, but now Bobby had brought them up again, and he couldn't get them out of his head. Bright wings, thin as paper, opening and closing slowly in the afternoon sunlight that was pouring in through the gauzy curtains that covered their window. Sammy keeping his mewls of pleasure quiet so that they wouldn't make it through the locked door, his tiny body tangled up in the sheets of the bed because he'd been squirming all over the place, Dean's own hands pale and freckled on his naked skin.

That was a nice memory. A beautiful one. No bad parts to it at all - nothing like the one that he'd been lost in before calling Bobby.

He had to finish it anyway, though. Before Sam came back.

**Early June, 1996**

Getting the door of the motel room open was way harder than it should've been, which pretty much told Dean that Sammy was inside. He'd tried to jam the lock (unsuccessfully, but in his defense, that was pretty tough to do), tied something that looked like shoelaces tightly around the inside knob in order to make it difficult to turn, and shoved one of the room's flimsy chairs up against it. It was all stuff that Dad had told them to do if they could make it back to the room when a monster was hot on their heels. It might not stop them, but it would at least slow them down.

Sammy had used methods meant to slow down monsters against Dean. That definitely stung a little.

"Sammy?" he asked softly, once he'd unlocked the door, overcome the shoelaces, and pushed the chair out of the way. The room was dark and he couldn't see his little brother. He was eerily reminded of Sammy's first day of kindergarten, and what he'd found when he followed him home. But this time, he was the reason that Sammy was heartbroken, which wasn't a good feeling.

There wasn't any answer, but he hadn't really expected one. Sammy had probably been crying his eyes out right up until he heard Dean start trying to open the door, and then he'd gone silent, wherever he was. He wouldn't want to be found right away.

Dean stepped inside, softly closing the door behind himself, and set down his and Sammy's backpacks. He was quiet about everything, feeling like he had to be. Screaming and yelling couldn't solve this problem that he'd caused himself. He stepped out of his boots and, as he did so, he saw Sammy's scuffed white shoes. They were a size too small, but all of Dean's hand-me-downs were too big, and they didn't have money for a new pair right now. They had also been clumsily shucked off next to Dad's bed. Dean walked towards it, and sucked at his lower lip as he saw a small lump underneath the surprisingly-plush covers. Sammy had chosen to hide in Dad's bed instead of the one that they'd shared since they first moved into the room. That stung, too.

Dean laid a hand on the lump, which immediately bucked him off and moved as far away from him as it could without falling off the edge of the mattress.

"Don't _touch_ me!" Sammy snarled. His voice was thick with tears and snot, and muffled by the covers that he'd burrowed under. "I know where you had your hands. I don't want any of that shit on me."

Dean smacked Sammy with the back of his hand. Not hard, and it was softened even further by the comforter and the sheets. He was about to tell him not to swear, because he was only thirteen years old, but the reproving words died in his throat when Sammy started sobbing again. Deep, painful, rough sounds that made Dean's stomach hurt. His hands hung uselessly at his sides as he watched Sammy crawl down towards the foot of the bed.

"Hey..." He didn't touch him again, and he waited until the crying had died down to speak. Mostly so that Sammy would actually be able to hear him. "Why're you crying?"

Jesus Christ, that was a stupid question. And, apparently, Sammy thought so, too, because his answer was almost a scream: "You were _fucking_ Madison against the blackboard!" Dean flinched, even before Sam continued at a lower decibel. "A-and now you're hitting me."

"I hit you 'cause you swore," Dean replied. It felt like his mouth was moving mechanically, and someone was sitting at a keyboard halfway across the country and typing in his words. "And I didn't even hit you that hard." But it'd been a bad thing to do in Sammy's fragile state. He saw that now.

"You fucked Madison," Sammy repeated, tone raw and accusatory. "At school. You were fucking her against the blackboard."

"No, I wasn't," Dean replied.

"You're such a _liar_!" The blankets twisted around Sam's shape, like he was squeezing angry handfuls of them. "D'you just think I'm stupid, Dean? D'you think I'm gonna believe anything just 'cause you say it? I'm not! You were fucking her, and I saw it, and you can both just go to hell."

"Stop _saying_ that," Dean snapped, his temper flaring a little. He wasn't sure how he had imagined this going, but it definitely hadn't been like this. "I didn't fuck her. You don't even know what fucking is - "

"Yes, I _do_!" Sammy interrupted fiercely. The blankets twisted around him even more, making a tight little cocoon, and Dean wondered if he could breathe. "It's something that you do if you care about somebody, and you wanna make them feel good, and you really love them, and we've never done it, but you were gonna do it with her."

" _Gonna_. I wasn't fucking her," Dean said, then had the feeling that, unfortunately, he'd just made things about a million times worse.

The covers were all pulled out of place, untucked from beneath the mattress, and tugged taut and piled around Sammy to make a lumpy, stifling fortress. The lump was shaking. Dean imagined snot and spit all over the sheets under there as, thickly, Sammy said, "Sorry I interrupted you. Should've just left - shouldn't've made a sound. Threw you off before you could get to the main thing."

"No," Dean said. "It...came out wrong, Sammy. I didn't mean that. I wasn't planning on - "

"I want you to stop calling me that," his younger brother interrupted, after a very loud and somehow angry sniff. "I'm getting too old for it. I've been too old for it for a long time. And so've you."

Even if Dean hadn't been pulling Bs and Cs in school right now, he would've been able to figure out that Sammy wasn't really talking about a nickname. Dean suppressed a heavy, regretful sigh, and then lowered himself to the mattress. The creaking of springs prompted a lot of squirming from the lump at the end of the bed, but there really wasn't anywhere else for him to go. Not without falling off the bed or getting closer to Dean, and there was no way that he wanted either of those things to happen.

"No," Dean repeated, the word coming out firmer than he'd expected it to "That's not true...you know it. And you know that I wasn't planning on doing anything more with Madison than what you saw." He paused, then rolled his eyes, knowing that Sammy couldn't see him doing it. "Come out from under there. You're gonna smother."

"No!" Sammy clutched more tightly onto the covers around him. "I don't care. Neither do you."

That made something in Dean flare up, a coal suddenly exploding in a banked fire. He leaned towards Sammy, supporting his weight with his hands as sheer horror at the idea of him dying crawled up and down his spine.

"How the hell can you say that?" he demanded. A little bit of anger had worked its way into his voice, which he felt was justified. "I don't care what you saw me doing, or who you saw me doing it with. I am _never_ gonna want you dead. I am never gonna stop carrying about you. You're my little brother, it's my job to keep you from biting it, and if I ever lost you, I'd...I'd..." He trailed off, unable to put what he was thinking into words. That there'd be nothing left for him if Sam was gone. It would rip everything that made him Dean right out of him, gutting him just as efficiently as the claws of a werewolf, and he would have no real choice but to follow Sammy. Dean was only seventeen, so he hadn't given a whole lot of thought to the loss of his brother, but he still somehow knew all of this with absolute surety.

Sammy wasn't convinced. Or maybe he was - it was pretty dam hard to tell when his face was entirely covered and the smaller sounds that he made were absorbed the cloth around him. Dean couldn't even read his body language, and he only knew that he was still breathing because the lump was slowly swelling and deflating.

"You were taking so long," Sammy said, finally. "I thought you were staying after school to work on a project or something. I wanted to help."

"She - " Dean began, desperate to defend himself.

"You should go back and finish up. I know you want to." There was a lot of shuffling underneath the blankets. Dean couldn't imagine what Sam was trying to do, and was honestly more focused on how bitter he sounded than that. "She definitely wants you to. And I don't want you here." More shuffling. "I feel sick."

"I don't want to!" Dean snapped. In the back of his mind, he was really hoping that Sammy didn't throw up, because he'd be the one who had to take care of it. "I didn't want to from the very beginning. She was gonna - she would've cried, and I just wanted to finish fast and get things back to - "

"So you don't give a shit about her or me," Sammy interrupted.

"Would you stop fucking swearing?" Dean demanded. He turned, bringing his knees up onto the bed, leaning over the lump and staring furiously down at it. "I give a shit about both of you. You more than her. You're my brother, and my whole crappy, pathetic life revolves around you. Her and what I did with her doesn't have a damn thing to do with _us_ , and I love you."

The words had been getting harder and harder to say, as he got older, getting stuck in his throat. They always either seemed cheap and worn out, or impossibly heavy with importance. The gravity of this situation, though, had smoothly forced them out.

"No," Sammy asserted from underneath the covers, "you don't." As he kept moving, Dean realized that he was trying to make an air chute. He must actually be suffocating in there. "I know that what we do with each other is wrong. It's gross; and it's illegal."

Dean wanted to ask who had taught him that, since the one time he had explained it to him, he'd been too young to understand. And he wanted to ask him how he'd learned that it was illegal, because he hadn't known that. But then he realized that Sam was thirteen. He had a pretty good grasp of how the world worked by now, so he had to understand that most people weren't very comfortable with the idea of a kid being brought to orgasm by his older brother. No matter how they felt about each other.

"But it...it's _special_ , Dean," Sammy continued. "It's _meaningful_. It was. And if you really did love me, you never would've done it with anybody else."

Dean couldn't argue with that. Not immediately, at least. Partially to buy himself some time and partially because he really was concerned, he said, "Come out, Sam."

"No." The lump shook. Maybe with grief, maybe with anger. "I don't wanna see you."

"I don't care," Dean countered. "You can't breathe and you're getting snot all over the sheets. Come out."

"I don't care," Sammy parroted, before repeating, "No."

"Sammy," Dean began, summoning up his very best "big brother" voice. It was tough, considering the situation and how stressed he was right now. "Come. Out."

"No," Sammy replied, before angrily adding, "go away. Go sleep with Madison. I don't care what you do, Dean, I just want you to _leave me alone_."

Dean was done with this game. He might've been okay with moving to the other bed and patiently waiting for Sammy to calm down and come to him, so that he could explain himself and apologize - if he'd known he could breathe. And something in Sammy's voice had killed all of his patience, made him desperate for him to understand. He couldn't wait.

"I said," Dean growled, grabbing onto the covers at the foot of the bed, _"come out."_

He yanked them up, exposing Sammy, who hadn't been holding on anywhere near tightly enough to resist his older brother's strength. Immediately, he scrambled off of the mattress. Dean followed. He managed to get his arms around him before he reached the other bed, and picked him up easily, since Sammy was less than half his size. He could put up one hell of a fight, though. His sock-covered heels pounded furiously against Dean's thighs, his small fingernails raking viciously across the exposed skin of his forearms. Dean had to keep moving his head so that Sammy couldn't slam his skull back into his face and break his nose. And he screamed.

"Put me down! Let me go! Let me go!" Considering the kind of place that this was, Dean was only briefly worried about someone in one of the other rooms calling the cops on him. "Stop touching me! I hate you!"

"Yeah, trust me, I hate you, too," Dean grunted, before dropping Sammy back onto the bed. He tried to run again, and when Dean headed him off, he attempted to crawl back into the mess that they'd made of the covers. Dean grabbed him before he could, though. "Would you stop acting like a brat for five minutes and _listen_?"

"I don't want to!" Sammy shouted, struggling fiercely. He bucked up, smacking Dean in the face with his bony preteen chest, and Dean tightened his hold on him. "It doesn't matter. You don't care, and you never have, and you're just gonna lie."

"She wanted me to make her feel special," Dean yelled back. "She's my friend. I didn't wanna see her cry. She said I only had to kiss her, and things kept going, and I hated every second, and you were on my mind the whole time."

"You wanted it. You didn't think about me," Sammy accused. His face was red and his mussed from being under the covers, his tiny body was feverishly hot under his rumpled clothes, and he was screaming up at Dean through tears and mucus. "You're a - a slut. You're a whore! I wish you were dead!"

"Shut up!" Dean was sick of arguing, sick of having abuse hurled at him. Pinning Sam's wrists to together above his head, he lifted him, then slammed him back to the mattress. That didn't really do anything but cause his screaming to dissolve completely into sobbing.

"You were t-touching her." Sammy's eyes were squeezed shut. "You w-were kissing her. You d-don't love anybody and you especially - don't - love - me."

He'd started hiccuping pretty badly, making him hard to understand. Watching him cry, Dean felt all of his frustration slowly drain away. He let go of Sammy's hands, which he used to cover his face, more than old enough now to be embarrassed by crying. Crouching over Sam, Dean reached down and began to gently put his hair back in place. Sammy shook him off, but he persisted.

"I do love you," he murmured. His throat was raw from yelling. "More than anything else. You're the only one I love."

Sammy sucked in a deep breath and held it, obviously trying to cure his hiccups. Dean waited patiently. When he exhaled, he took his hands away from his face, and glared up at Dean with swollen eyes. He growled, "Prove it."

Dean slipped a hand underneath Sammy, settling between his shoulder blades and pulling him up into a sitting position. Sammy was boneless, eyelids drooping in what Dean assumed was exhaustion. He must have completely worn himself out with all the crying and screaming and fighting, and Dean really couldn't blame him, considering that he was pretty tired himself. But he had to push past it. Laying down with Sammy on top of him and holding him close while they both slept just wouldn't cut it. He pulled a wad of cheap tissues out of the box on the nightstand that sat between the two beds, and started wiping Sammy's face up, cleaning him off. He squirmed a little, looking embarrassed.

"Cut it out," he muttered. Dean couldn't remember the last time that he'd cleaned his face off. Definitely not since he was really little.

"You're a mess," Dean pointed out. "You think I want snot in my mouth?"

"'S your fault." Sammy's voice was low, like he was reluctant to reopen the argument. Dean just let it slide, though because there was no resentment in his voice.

"Yeah, I know." He set the sodden bundle of tissues aside, making a mental note to throw them away later. "I'm cleaning up my mess."

He leaned forward to kiss Sammy, who turned away, so he made do with his soft, rounded cheek. He peppered his face with kisses - his closed eyes, his pointy little nose, the mole right next to it, but not his mouth. Sammy wouldn't allow him access to that yet. He slowly laid him down in the middle of all the blankets, a much gentler version of the position that he'd been in earlier. It was like they were in a lopsided nest. Dean fixed it as best he could while he was kissing Sammy, wanting him to feel completely protected.

"I want you to know how I feel about you. What you mean to me," he whispered into one of Sammy's pulse points. "I want you to understand."

"You don't understand how I feel," Sammy whispered back, his voice small.

"Yeah..." Dean slipped Sammy's arms out of his jacket. When he raised one of his hands, he kissed it, then closed his eyes as it caressed the side of his face. "I do. Lemme show you."

Sammy didn't consent to that, but he didn't object, so Dean decided to take his silence as encouragement. After getting his own jacket off, he went back to work with his kissing. Sammy's scent was warm and familiar, all he needed to send the memory of Madison to the very back of his mind, and he was slowly cooling under Dean's lips now that he was out in the open air and not under the covers. When Dean flicked the hem of his shirt up and nuzzled against his stomach, feeling his heartbeat in the soft, hairless flesh, then he reached down and took handfuls of his close-cropped hair. His fingernails dug pleasantly into his scalp.

"Were you this gentle with her?" he asked. Dean wouldn't even have been able to hear him if he hadn't been as close as he was.

"No," Dean said.

Sammy was getting more pliant underneath Dean's hands as they ran over him, more cooperative. He actually made a happy little cooing sound when Dean slowly worked his shirt off and kissed his bare chest, but it faded out into a sob.

"Shhhh," Dean soothed, raising his head a little. He laid a rough hand on Sammy's ribcage, fingering a small scar that had come from him falling on a piece of broken glass while they were sparring in a motel parking lot. God, Dean hated every scar on Sammy's body - every single one was a reminder of a time that he hadn't protected him like he deserved to be protected. "Want me to stop?"

"Nn-nn." Sammy shook his head, and wiped his eyes with the back of one bare forearm. "Keep proving."

Dean did. Through every article of clothing that he took off of himself and his brother. He kissed, nuzzled, touched - he went through all of the small, affectionate gestures that came so naturally to him when he was with Sammy but that he hadn't bothered with for Madison. The random sobs that kept bursting out of Sammy stopped about five minutes after Dean got them both completely naked, and he held onto him as he worked, making soft sounds of pleasure and contentment. His little cock was rising, too, but it wasn't enough. It wouldn't have been enough even if Dean had sucked him off with a few fingers stuffed up inside him, which Sammy loved but they didn't do too often because it seemed...well, even filthier than what they usually did with each other.

"Wouldn't've had sex with her," Dean whispered, into the thick brown mop of Sammy's hair. His younger brother had begun to slowly roll his hips, rubbing himself against Dean's stomach, which was flat and hard from hunting and training. "Furthest I've ever gone before is what I've done with you."

Sammy had moved his hands down to Dean's shoulders, and was gripping the freckled skin tightly enough to leave bruises in it. It was like he was afraid that Dean would just get up and leave right in the middle of this if he didn't hang onto him. "You've never..." Looked like his nose had started to clear up, since his voice sounded a lot more normal now. "...done it?"

Dean couldn't keep himself from snorting, even though it probably ruined the moment a little bit. "When the hell would I've jumped into bed with somebody? I spend all my time with _you_."

"And Madison."

Dean didn't directly respond to that. Instead, he said, "You said you knew about sex." Even though that wasn't exactly the word that they'd both used. "D'you know how two guys do it?"

Sammy blinked up at him, and slowly, a faint pink blush started creeping across his face. Dean kissed his cheeks, which were getting warmer and warmer, as he answered in an embarrassed voice.

"Well...one puts his...penis...in the other one's, um...anus." He snuggled closer to Dean, as if trying to bury himself in him.

"Yeah, basically," Dean agreed. "But most of us call it a 'cock,' y'know."

Sammy's voice was sharp when he answered, and he pulled back a little bit. "I don't like that word."

"Okay." Dean was definitely not in the mood for another fight. But he decided to bring this up later, and find out the story behind it. There had to be one. "There's another name for sex. All kinds of sex."

"Fucking," Sammy supplied dryly.

" _No_. Well, yes, but that's not the one that I'm talking about," Dean said. He had lowered himself to the mattress, lying in the nest beside Sam with several limbs thrown protectively over him. His head was pressed to that of his little brother, and he was murmuring in his ear. "You can also call it making love."

Sammy didn't say anything in response to that. He turned his head to the side, looking at Dean with eyes that were still baby-large and probably always would be. The bed's comforter was red, so his irises were a deep, rich shade of scarlet brown that reminded Dean of a really expensive wooden table that he'd seen once in an antique shop. Sammy found Dean's hand, and held it loosely.

"I wanna make love to you, Sammy," Dean said. Sammy stirred a little, and he continued. "I don't wanna have sex with you, I don't wanna bang you, I don't wanna fuck. I wanna make love to you."

Sammy's grip on Dean's hand tightened, and he whispered, "Will it hurt?"

Dean had never really cared about the fact that he couldn't draw to save his life, but right now, he was really hating that he had no artistic talent. He would've killed to be able to paint or even sketch his baby brother as he looked at this exact moment. His bare skin was absolutely flawless besides scattered moles, his hair was mussed and fell in a silky pile, and his cheek was pressed into the comforter, which obscured part of his face. Late afternoon sunlight slanted in through the cracks in their room's blinds, coloring him a rich gold. Dean didn't have a great appreciation for beauty, but this...he would have known that this was beautiful even if he'd been blind.

"No," Dean replied, voice soft. "I've had my fingers and my tongue in you a million times, and my c - my penis isn't that much bigger than what you're used to." Hopefully. In Dean's own opinion, he was hung, but he also had pretty big fingers. "I'll go slow, too. Make sure that everything feels good for you and nothing hurts."

Sammy's tongue darted out and he licked his lips as he shifted. "You lick me whenever you put your fingers in."

"Yeah, 'cause it works better if you're a little wet," Dean agreed. "But we're gonna need more than spit for this. There's a blue bottle in my duffel; you wanna get it, or should I?"

"What is it?" Sammy asked with a frown. "Water?"

"No. Lube. It makes you slick," Dean explained. "Like...for this, and for jerking off."

Sammy stuck his tongue out, just the tip. "Why d'you have that?"

"It's a long story." Dean definitely wasn't sexually frustrated, considering that he had an eager-to-please lover who was more than willing to make him come at least once a day. But he was still seventeen, and sometimes Sammy didn't feel well or had to stay after school for a project or something. So...he literally took matters into his own hands every once in awhile. It was never as good as what Sammy did to him, but it got the job done. Up until a few months ago, he'd kept a cache of tiny lotion bottles, taken from the nicer places they had stayed at, in his duffel bag. But Dad must have stumbled upon that, because he'd come home late one night, tossed a bottle of lube to him with zero eye contact and a muttered "Here," and then left again. He had to admit, it definitely worked better than the lotion. "It doesn't matter."

"You get it," Sammy said, which Dean had been expecting. He rolled over onto his side and curled up as Dean got to his feet, and shivered a little, eyes closed.

"Cold?" Dean asked, returning to the bed once he'd gotten what he needed. Sammy nodded. "Well, don't worry. I'm gonna warm you up."

He nudged him onto his back, stroking his hair with one hand while he used the other to hook his legs over his hips. He may still be a virgin in the most technical sense of the word, but that didn't mean that he was clueless about how to have sex. As he was preparing to pour lube onto his fingers, though, Sammy reached up and grabbed onto his wrist, stopping him.

"Don't do it unless you really do mean it," he whispered, looking up at Dean with moist eyes and swallowing hard before he continued. "Don't give it to me, and don't take it from me, unless...unless I really am your everything. Unless you were telling the truth."

Dean stared down at him, then lowered his hands and set the bottle of lube aside. Sammy seemed to wilt and wither underneath him. Grabbing him, Dean pulled his limp body up against his own, and held him tightly while he locked their lips together. The kiss seemed to bring Sammy back to life, and he wrapped his arms around Dean in an effort to be even closer. Their cocks rubbed against each other, Dean's still so much larger than Sam's.

"I am never gonna care about anything more than I do about you," Dean said eventually. They had broken their kiss, but their foreheads were still pressed together, their breaths mingling. "You're my little brother, and that means...that just means everything. You're the center of my world. All I want is you, with me, for the rest of my life." However short that may be, since he was, after all, a hunter. They both were. "We've been at this for ten years now, baby boy. Don't you think that's long enough to tie me to you forever?"

Sammy made a very soft sound, and burrowed in under Dean's chin. His breath puffed hotly against his throat as he asked, "Can you do it with me facing you?"

"Course I can," Dean replied. He kind of wondered what Sam had thought that he was doing when he made him lay on his back and wrap his legs around his waist. Maybe he'd just assumed he was prepping him and would flip him over when he was done.

Sammy let go of him, and Dean took the hint and dropped his own arms, letting him lean back. Sammy lowered himself to the bed, thighs spread and knees resting on Dean's hips, and propped himself up on his elbows so that he could look at him. The pose probably wasn't meant to be sexy, but Dean had to catch his breath nonetheless.

"I'm ready," Sammy said. Dean picked up the bottle again.

Remembering that Sammy had told him that he was cold, Dean warmed the lube between his fingers. Sammy sighed with something that had to be pleasure when he slipped one finger past those two rings of muscle that he had become so familiar with, and then gasped when he crooked it in order to rub the slick swelling of his prostate. Sammy was pretty loose, since he was used to having Dean's body parts in this particular opening on a daily basis, but Dean had figured that it was better to be safe than sorry and was stretching him out anyway. He added a second finger, then a third, and coaxed some of the prettiest moans he'd ever heard out of Sammy. He spasmed around him, as if trying to hold his fingers inside of himself every time that Dean pulled out again, and he was _hot_. Even if he was shivering on the outside, then he was burning up on the inside, which was pretty much what Dean remembered most about every other time that he'd put his fingers or his tongue inside of him. The tissue was soft and elastic, but ridged with strong muscle, and every time that he touched one of those rings, Sammy squirmed with what had to be pleasure.

He kept gently working Sammy, rubbing one of his sweet spots every once in awhile, until he was completely loose around all of his fingers and had begun to buck against his hand. He pulled out then, and stroked Sammy's thigh with his dry hand.

"Gonna come in now," he murmured, as he lined himself up. He didn't want to just slam into him with no warning. Though warning him might not do any good, since he had no real idea of how to enter him. It couldn't be that hard, could it?

"'Kay," Sammy gasped, nodding fervently.

"Tell me the second it starts hurting," Dean commanded. Tearing Sam open after just about breaking his heart - wouldn't that be great. "If it does, I mean."

"'Kay," Sammy repeated, squeezing handfuls of the comforter.

Dean wiped his fingers off on the sheets (they'd have to be washed later anyway, after what Sammy had done in them), then held onto Sammy's hips, steadying him. He pressed his head against the warm, yielding wetness of his opening, and Sammy whined.

"Deeeeeean..." he begged, shuddering. Dean took a deep breath, braced himself, and brought his hips smoothly forward.

The feeling of being completely surrounded by Sammy, enveloped by him, drew a groan out of Dean. He must have done a pretty good job of loosening Sam up, because he didn't tell him to stop - just let out a little cry of pleasure. It was a sound that Dean was used to.

Dean moved back, then forward again, in a tiny, tentative thrust. Sammy moaned. Moving his hands to the bed on either side of him, Dean looked down at him, and grinned breathlessly.

"Y'know, if I went blind right now and this was the very last thing that I saw," he murmured, "I think that I'd be okay with that."

Small hands slapped gently, ineffectively, against his chest. Sammy was glaring up at him now, but there was something playful about it.

"You're so corny," he complained, and his voice was thin with pleasure. Dean's grin just widened, and he moved himself inside of Sam, getting another moan out of him. His hands curled against his chest, fingernails lightly scraping over the skin and the tiny wisps of blond hair.

"You know you like it," he countered huskily. Sammy rolled his eyes, then closed them as Dean lowered himself for a kiss.

There wasn't much talking when he was done with that - not actual words, at least. Sammy had always been fairly vocal when Dean made him feel good, and this was obviously no exception. They fell into a steady rhythm together after a few more experimental thrusts from Dean, matching and countering each other's movements, slowly building up speed and power. Dean made sure that it stayed gentle, though. This was the first time for both of them, and he definitely did not want to find blood in Sammy's boxers the next time that it was his turn to do their laundry.

After a few minutes, Dean started noticing that all the sounds Sammy was making - whimpers, moans, cries, gasps - were being cut off prematurely but one of two things. Either their mouths meeting in a wet and heated kiss, or Sammy biting down on his increasingly-red lower lip to shut himself up. When a forward thrust produced a sharp and quickly-stifled cry (he was getting better and better at finding Sammy's prostate with the head of his cock), Dean brushed hair out of his face and spoke to him.

"How come you keep doing that, Sammy?" He lifted his hand, and brushed a rough thumb gently over his swollen lip.

"D-don't want anybody to hear me," Sammy replied shakily. "Don't want anybody to know what we're doing."

"How come?" Dean repeated. He'd slowed his thrusts a little so that it'd be easier for them to talk. He was already having a tough time stringing words together into coherent sentences, and guessed that Sammy was, too.

"You never...you never want anybody to know...ahhh - " Sammy had to pause to get himself under control. And to give Dean a fevered kiss. "That we're doing this thing with each other."

Dean cupped the side of Sammy's face and repeated the kiss before saying, "Be as loud as you want. Want everybody to know how we feel about each other."

Sammy blinked up at Dean, eyes liquid, and he could easily read surprise on his face. He closed his own eyes, breathing deeply as two words thudded in his head: "slow" and "sweet." That was what he wanted it to be right now.

"I'm not ashamed of you," Dean said softly. It took a massive effort on his part to speak so clearly right now, but he needed Sammy to understand all of this. "I'm not embarrassed about what we've got. Would shout it from the freaking rooftops, wouldn't care what anyone thought of us, if I knew that there wasn't anything they could do about it." He nuzzled into Sammy's neck, making him moan, and nipped the skin there. "But I'm scared that they'd take you away from me if they knew."

"So why - " Sammy began. Dean interrupted him.

"No one's gonna know that it's your big brother making you yell, even if they hear you," he pointed out. He kissed his neck, and nuzzled it again, overwhelmed with his scent. "C'mon, baby. Lemme hear you."

"Corny," Sammy accused, then arched his spine, threw his head back, and cried out loudly as Dean suddenly sped his thrusts up again. He grabbed onto him and squeezed tightly. Dean squeezed back, just focusing on giving his younger brother as much pleasure as he possibly could.

"But you like it," he whispered.

Their rhythm was gone now, both of them too far into what they were doing to focus on it. Dean knew how to read Sammy, after years of making him come, and he stopped holding back when Sammy's fingernails dug deep into his skin and he started mewling loudly. Face still buried in his neck, Dean whispered "Love you, love you, love you," in time with his thrusts. It didn't take long to push him over the edge.

Dean was practically lying on top of Sammy by then, just trying to get the very best angle, so he felt it when warm, sticky liquid spread between their stomachs. Sammy still didn't have a whole lot of come, but Dean felt like this was a bit bigger than his usual load. He went limp and relaxed underneath him just as soon as it'd stopped flowing, his breathing and his heart rate slowing down in small increments. Dean trailed languid kisses across his jaw and down his neck, noting how warm the smooth skin was - he definitely wasn't cold anymore.

"Sorry," Sammy whispered, after a couple of seconds.

"What for?" Dean hadn't been expecting to hear that when they were done.

"Couldn't hold it back. Couldn't come with you." His eyes closed. "S'posed to, right?"

"No," Dean replied, realizing that his brother had a very romanticized idea of sex and what was supposed to happen during it. "Not usually. And you're still little, so you don't have a whole lotta control over stuff like that. In fact..." He twisted his neck in order to glance at the clock. Nine minutes, give or take, since they'd started. "I'm surprised both of us lasted as long as we did."

"You still gotta come," Sammy murmured, head falling tiredly to the side.

"Yeah, but I can take care of myself," Dean replied. He made to pull out, but Sammy suddenly reached up and grabbed his shoulder. His grip was weak, but his expression was determined as he shook his head.

"No." He let his hand drop. "In...in me. Please."

Dean swiped the tip of his tongue over his lips, and asked, "You sure?" They were salty.

"Want you," Sammy said by way of an answer, nodding decisively. "'Sides. 'S not like I can get pregnant, right?"

Dean huffed out a laugh. "Jesus, I hope not."

One, two, three thrusts - Dean didn't need any more than that. There was a lot of squeaking from Sammy, because his own orgasm had been recent enough to leave him overly sensitive, but he never told him to stop. And he wasn't moving for very long.

Dean breathed out Sammy's name as he pumped him full, and he must have liked that, because he kissed him and stroked his hair while he was coming down. Once completely finished, he pulled out and pretty much collapsed on his side next to Sammy. He was almost twice his size and didn't want to hurt him by falling on top of him.

"'S leaking out," Sammy murmured, squirming a little.

"Doesn't matter," Dean replied. "'M gonna change these sheets after we shower and eat. You already snotted all over 'em, so come won't make a difference."

Silence. Soft breathing. Then a sniff, and a tired, murmured apology.

"No," Dean said, knowing that the apology was for Sam's earlier crying jag and then tantrum. "Don't. I'm the one who fucked up, not you."

"Didn't fuck up that bad," Sammy murmured, and Dean decided to let the cursing go for now. "More than made up for it. And I know that it's not gonna happen again." He rolled over, snuggling against Dean's bare torso and twisting his way into his arms. He tucked his head in neatly under his chin. Dean let him.

"You do, huh?" Dean asked with half a smile.

"Yep." Sammy pushed his skinny little legs in between Dean's.

"So...does that mean I proved it?" Dean asked Sam's sex-ruffled hair.

He barely even heard his younger brother's "Yes," but that was okay, because he didn't really need it. It just got lost in the softness of the moment, which was, in and of itself, all the assent he needed. They were curled up together, both of them warm and sleepy, and safe in their nest. The light was a syrupy, fading gold. The comforter was red. They'd have to go and clean up eventually, since they were sticky and sweaty and smelled too much like each other, but not right now. And there was no one at all in the world but the two of them.

Dean knew that that would never change for him, no matter how many people he saw and interacted with in the future. Only Sammy would ever be real; only Sammy would ever matter. He would prove that as many times as he needed to make sure that he was believed.

Sammy deserved to know that he was his brother's world, an entire universe folded up in that tiny frame and those impossible eyes.


	21. Chapter Twenty-one

"I'm gonna be honest – that looks like somebody just threw up in a bowl and sent it out here," Dean announced, lifting a mug of black coffee to his mouth.

Sam scowled at him over a spoonful of oatmeal, not appreciating the observation. Mostly because yeah, it _did_ look uncomfortably like what he'd seen in the toilet every time he'd had the flu or been hungover, and he would have preferred not to have it pointed out. He steeled himself and took the bite anyway. Dean wasn't going to put him off of a breakfast that he'd dragged him out of bed two hours too early for.

"It's oatmeal," he said. "It looks fine."

"Looks like barf," Dean asserted. As he speared a sausage link, a girl who couldn't have been more than five or six shot him a look from where she was sitting across the aisle with her family. Sam offered her an apologetic smile after noticing that she had a bowl of oatmeal in front of her, too.

"D'you want me to start talking about what yours looks like?" Sam asked, using his now-empty spoon to gesture at the fried eggs, sausages, and hash browns on Dean's plate. They were all bleeding enough grease for just the sight of it to make Sam's left arm ache.

"I already know what it looks like," Dean replied, daintily nipping off the end of the sausage on his fork. Sam made an exaggerated face as he heard the casing _snap_. "Not barf."

"Cut it out – this looks nothing like barf," Sam said, digging into it again. He offered the spoonful up for Dean's inspection. "Look. There's raisins in it, and cranberries – "

"Hence the reason it looks like barf," Dean interrupted. Sam was momentarily impressed by his correct use of the word "hence," but shook it off when he popped the rest of the sausage into his mouth.

"At least my arteries are clear," Sam pointed out, eating the spoonful. It'd gone cold while he was showing it to Dean.

Dean snorted. "Oh, please. Get off your high horse, Sammy – there's enough sugar over there to put you on insulin packs for the rest of your life." He scooped up some eggs and spoke with a full mouth as he nodded in the general direction of Sam's mug. "And don't even get me started on your cup of creamer. How much coffee's in there? A drop?"

"I need the sugar," Sam defended himself before taking another bite of oatmeal. He made a big show of swallowing before he continued. "You got me up way too early – "

"Seven, you wuss. I got you up at _seven_."

" – after you'd kept me up all night," Sam finished, taking a sip of what was, admittedly, mostly non-dairy creamer.

"Now you're just making stuff up," Dean said. He stole a piece of Sam's toast to dunk in the yolks of his eggs, and Sam let him. It was sourdough. "I went to bed at exactly the same time that you did."

"Yeah, but you didn't go to sleep," Sam said. "You hugged me, you laid on top of me, I swear you got my hair in your mouth more than once the way that you were nuzzling me…" If things had been normal, Sam wouldn't have been able to complain about an extra-cuddly Dean. But as it was, he was surprised that the smothering affection hadn't woken his father up inside of his head. And he would rather have slept, after the exhausting, disappointing mess that yesterday had been. "And after you finally passed out, you were tossing and turning so much that I almost got up and slept on the floor."

At least Dean hadn't had his arms around him while he'd been doing his best impression of a fish out of water. Sam had gotten some sleep because they'd been separate.

He'd been expecting another snarky comeback, but instead, Dean just sighed and reached for his coffee again. "Yeah…that doesn't surprise me. I'm sorry. I didn't sleep too well."

Sam was about to dryly remark that he hadn't, either, but the mood had shifted subtly and it was obvious that they weren't playing around with each other anymore. So instead, he asked, "You're not still stressing out about this case, are you?"

Dean sighed for a second time, folding his arms across his chest and leaning back against the red and white vinyl of the booth. He frowned down at his half-eaten breakfast, and Sam scraped up the dregs of his oatmeal as he waited for him to talk, never taking his eyes off of him.

"I just feel like an idiot," Dean said eventually, shaking his head. "We wasted so much goddamn time here. Time that we could've spent looking for Dad."

Sam's stomach tightened at the mention of their father, and he was glad that he'd finished eating. As he pushed his empty bowl to the edge of the table and picked up his mug, he noticed that the girl across the aisle was still watching them. He sighed a little, because she looked pretty shocked by their conversation. Or maybe just the words they'd been using.

"Dean," Sam said. Dean had been mixing ketchup into his hash browns to create what looked like a pile of bloody brains (the appearance of which Sam really wished he wasn't familiar with), but he looked up when he heard his name. Sam tilted his head discreetly towards the girl. "Little pitchers."

Dean's green eyes flicked to the side, and he blushed faintly before shoveling some hash browns into his mouth. Sam nursed his not-really-coffee.

"You can't tell me that you're not pi – that you're not frustrated, too," Dean said after a couple of seconds. He was talking with his mouth full again, and Sam grimaced around the rim of his cup. "Almost a week – completely useless. All we did was bother a bunch of people and waste gas." He swallowed, and cleared his throat. "Oh, and let that crazy lady know that we, uh, have an unprofessional relationship."

"That last one's not really a big deal," Sam said. He wanted to see if Dean would agree with him or not.

"No, I know it's not." Dean stabbed another sausage. The tines of his fork scraped obnoxiously across the plate. "She could've figured out that we moved around a lot as kids and never had a permanent home and I'd feel the same way. I just hate that someone could read us that well. Especially someone like that."

"Why?" Sam asked, with a near-invisible smirk. "'Cause you think she's crazy?"

"Two packs a day and she thinks the da – the stupid plant gave her cancer," Dean said. Again with the head-shaking. "You can't tell me that that's not totally insane."

"Okay, you've got a point," Sam admitted. "But seriously. You need to stop beating yourself up over this. Yeah, we wasted time, but it's not the end of the world, and besides: how would you have known that this hunt wasn't worth it? We've never come across one of these mothman things before. We've never even heard of them."

Dean rubbed at his face as he swallowed a mouthful of sausage. "Still hate it."

"You think I don't?" Sam asked, arching an eyebrow. "I was the one who did all the research and still didn't know what it was. I'm the one who should feel like an idiot."

He was unsurprised when Dean grinned in a "hey-you're-right" kind of way, and let him have his moment of smugness. The grin faded after a second, anyway. Dean pulled out his wallet and began shelling bills onto the table. He must have remembered that Sam had bought dinner last night.

"C'mon, let's hit the road," he said, sliding out of the booth and getting to his feet. He waited for Sam. "I just wanna wash the taste of this hunt outta my mouth."

"Are you sure that we should take off so soon?" Sam asked. Dean eyed him as they walked to the door.

"You wanna go back and talk about test tube babies with Cynthia?" he asked.

"No," Sam replied. "I know that Bobby said that these things are harmless, but I'd feel weird if we didn't do a once-over of the plant while we're here. Just make sure that everything's back to normal."

Dean glanced at him, leaving the diner, and smirked.

"We're not gonna get in," he said, shaking his head as he unlocked the car. "You said so yourself. Last night, remember?"

"Yeah, but things will have calmed down some since yesterday," Sam answered. "Plus…" He opened the trunk, reaching for the box of fake IDs. "We're not actually reporters for some indie magazine." Dean had come around to the back of the Impala, hands in the pockets of the leather jacket that he was wearing, to watch Sam dig through the box. He accepted one of the laminated cards when Sam handed it to him. "We're federal nuclear safety inspectors who were working undercover as reporters, gathering local opinions, when the cooling pipe burst."

Dean studied the ID, then showed it to Sam with a raised eyebrow. "Hate to burst your bubble, Sammy, but this says that we're with the Health Department. I don't think that nuclear power plants fall under their jurisdiction."

"D'you really think that whoever lets us in is gonna spend more than five seconds looking at our badges?" Sam asked as he shoved the ID into the pocket of his jeans that held his wallet and closed the trunk. "There are gonna be a million of these guys all over the entire island. The security guards will be sick of looking at their badges. These look pretty close to the real thing…" He walked up to the passenger side door. "…and that's all that matters."

Dean was grinning when he joined Sam in the car and stabbed the keys into the ignition. Sam was relieved that the funk he'd been in earlier, over the uselessness of this case, seemed to have passed. The engine hummed to life, and he pulled out of the parking lot.

"There's my Sammy," he said, the approving note in his voice hard to miss. "Good to know that college didn't kill your devious side."

"It was _college_ , Dean," Sam said by way of explanation.

They had checked out of their motel room before going to grab breakfast, so all they had to do was drive across the bridge and back onto the island. It was obvious that yesterday's malfunction was still sending ripples through the community, since almost everyone who hadn't had to go to work or school seemed to be standing outside in their yards or on the sidewalks, talking with folded arms and closed postures. Most of them were also casting suspicious glances at the workers who were pretty much everywhere: government types and people in plant uniforms both, conducting interviews, collecting samples, and generally making sure that everything was all right. Dean was spending more time watching them than the road, which would have worried Sam if he hadn't known exactly how good of a driver his brother was.

"Whole lotta activity," Dean observed. They were going slow because of all the cars parked on either side and the people who kept running out in front of them, too busy to bother looking both ways before crossing the street. "Who kicked the anthill?"

"This has gotta be the biggest nuclear incident since…well, since the last time Three Mile Island melted down," Sam replied. "Things like this just don't happen anymore. Not with all the safety regulations that they've been putting in since the sixties and seventies. It makes sense that the government – and the plant itself – is going over this place with a fine-toothed comb."

Dean grunted in understanding, and was silent after that until they were on the road that led directly to the plant. Then he squinted at a guy walking along the shoulder. "Hey. Does he have an EMF detector?"

"That's a Geiger counter," Sam said. " _Not_ an EMF detector – we'd both be in some serious trouble if ghosts were radioactive." He thought about all the ghosts he'd been within arm's reach of over the years, even the weak ones that hadn't been able to hurt him, and imagined tumors blossoming all over his organs like peonies in a flower garden.

"So he's looking for radiation," Dean said, eyeing the guy suspiciously as they passed. He didn't notice.

"Yep," Sam said, not nearly as interested.

"I thought you said that no radiation had been released," Dean said. Maybe it had just been Sam's imagination, but he could swear that the car slowed down just a little.

"He's probably just confirming that," Sam answered. "And even if radiation _had_ been released, chances are that it'd be contained within the plant. That's how they're built."

"So if there's any radiation at all on this island, we're gonna walk right into it," Dean concluded with a grimace.

"I'm sure that they'll give you a lead helmet if you ask for one," Sam told him, adjusting his jacket as the smokestacks of the plant loomed on the horizon. Dean shot him a grin, and he knew what was coming before he even opened his mouth.

"Not my brain that I'm worried about, Sammy," Dean declared, spinning the wheel and sending the Impala gliding into a very full parking lot. "Not the upstairs one, at least."

Sam snorted. He was about to ask if Dean planned to knock him up anytime soon, but before he could, a familiar voice broke into his head with a growled, _Don't_. He tensed, fingers sinking into the worn leather of his seat, but he'd braced himself for nothing. The voice was silent after that one word, and Sam relaxed incrementally as Dean searched for a parking space that would accommodate the Impala. Because he didn't say anything, just shot a glance at him every three seconds or so, Sam assumed that his older brother knew what was going on and was ready to step in and help if he needed to.

"You okay?" he asked quietly as they got out of the car. He'd finally found a spot, and Sam was feeling just fine by now. So he nodded.

"Yeah," he assured. "Yeah, of course I am. Don't worry."

"'Cause we can just…go, y'know," Dean told him, walking around the car. Sam followed. "If you don't really feel up to this. It's not like we absolutely have to check this place out, after all."

Sam sighed. "I know." He also knew that Dean had to be itching to take off, since the only reason they were here was to humor him. "But I'm okay, Dean. Let's just take a quick look around, and then we can go. It won't be more than fifteen minutes. I promise."

Dean gave him a skeptic look, then stuffed his hands into the pockets of his jacket and led the way towards the building. "I'm holding you to that, just so you know."

Sam grinned. "Got it."

As they approached the plant, the security guard standing right outside the doors eyed the two of them suspiciously. He looked vaguely familiar, even from a distance, and once they got close enough to recognize him, Sam hissed through his teeth. Dean muttered, "Great."

"Non-workers and civilians aren't allowed inside right now," Clay said once the two of them were within earshot, his voice both firm and distasteful. "I don't care if you are reporters."

"So you're, uh, hired muscle," Dean replied, reaching into one of the inner pockets of his jacket. "That makes sense…and we're not reporters, genius. We're nuclear safety inspectors." He pulled out the badge that Sam had handed him earlier, brandishing it about an inch from Clay's face. "We were doing undercover interviews about the weird stuff that's been happening at the plant lately. Good thing we stuck around as long as we did, huh?"

Considering that Clay's very-unimpressed gaze was fixed on Dean, Sam doubted that he had seen how heavily he'd just winced. His plan had depended almost entirely upon whatever security guard they encountered just glancing at their IDs. But Clay was just the type to scrutinize every inch of the badges, and he'd made it very clear yesterday that he didn't like either of them, so he'd probably look as closely as he could just to spite them. And Dean's greeting definitely hadn't done them any favors.

But, much to Sam's surprise, Clay grunted in acknowledgement after only a few seconds, stepping back and irritably waving them towards the double doors that made up the main entrance to the building. As Dean slipped his badge back into his pocket, Sam saw that he'd been holding it so that his squared-off fingertips covered a few key components.

"Like we really need any more of you guys around here," Clay muttered, folding his arms across his broad chest.

"Well, trust me," Dean answered, walking past him with Sam in tow. "We don't really wanna be here, either."

Sam waited until they were safely inside the lobby, then asked, "Do you really have to try and get in a fight with that guy every time that we see him?"

"He's a dick," Dean pointed out. "He'd deserve it if somebody handed his ass to him."

Sam snorted, but didn't say anything else. He actually didn't know who would win in a fight between Dean and Clay, since Clay was bigger but Dean had to be more experienced. He didn't really want to find out, either.

A receptionist handed them radiation badges and called down a harried-looking worker to show them around. He took them through a maze of clean, well-lit hallways, and for some reason, Sam was eerily reminded of their impromptu tour of the abandoned military base in Lake City.

"I'd've thought that the power would be off," Dean commented.

"We only shut down the malfunctioning reactor," replied the worker. A laminated nametag, clipped to his uniform right below a radiation badge of his own, stated that his name was Bill Hedstrom. "One's still on. But _you_ people are putting the screws on us to change that." He shot a baleful look at them over his shoulder. Sam was relieved when Dean didn't respond to the misguided accusation.

The building that housed the now-dormant reactor (and the cooling pipe that had burst) was a flurry of activity, even more so than the rest of the island. There were Geiger counters and radiation badges everywhere. They couldn't go ten feet without finding a federal worker and an employee of the plant arguing heatedly with each other. And there was a pool of water settled in even the shallowest dips of the floor.

"So, did the pipe burst – " Sam began, curious.

"In the reactor chamber," Bill said, finishing his question for him. "But some genius pulled the fire alarm and triggered the sprinklers. That's why there's water all over the place. And, as I'm sure you can imagine, we're having a hell of a time cleaning it up, with how crowded this place is."

"We'll try and get out of your hair as soon as we can," Sam said, knowing that he was only speaking honestly about Dean and himself. Bill snorted.

"Yeah, I bet," he said. "That's what you guys said last time, too. My dad worked here then, and he complained for years about how long it took for the government to clear out." He looked at them, and changed the subject. "What exactly do you two wanna see? Reactor chamber? Pump room?"

"Actually, we'd really like to see the abandoned reactor," Sam said, slipping his hands into the pockets of his jacket. The only reason they were here was to make sure that the mothman had moved on, and it seemed to have nested in the abandoned reactor.

Bill came to a full stop and turned around to stare at the two of them. He glanced at Dean, as if looking for sudden reassurance that Sam was just messing with him. Sam couldn't really see what Dean did, since they were standing right next to each other, but that assurance obviously didn't come. Bill shook his head.

"Nothing's happened over there for thirty years," he told them. "Why are you interested in that one? The problem's _here_."

Dean fielded this question. With a shrug, he said, "Hey, man, we don't question orders. Our boss told us to check out the abandoned reactor. Didn't bother to tell us why, but I guess that that's what we've gotta do."

Bill eyed him, then turned and led them down a side hall. "If you ask me, it sounds like your boss doesn't know a thing about how nuclear power works."

"You're preaching to the choir," Dean said. Sam held back a bark of laughter. Like Dean knew anything about the nuclear power industry.

They left the building, crunching their way across a swath of frost-covered grass. There were more than a few people milling around out there, and most of them seemed to be either reporters or residents of the surrounding area. The former were taking pictures and interviews, and the latter were ranting to whoever would listen and very obviously looking around for anything interesting. Bill cut a path through them like a farmer walking through a flock of aimless chickens, and Sam and Dean hurried in his wake.

"It was worse yesterday," he said. "I'll still be glad when it all dies down, though."

"I bet," Sam said.

The abandoned reactor was surrounded by a chain link fence and a crowd, though it was considerably smaller than the one at the reactor that had malfunctioned yesterday. Bill's uniform drew attention as he approached the fence's gate, manned by a single security guard, and a lot of that attention spilled off onto Sam and Dean. A few people – Sam couldn't tell if they were reporters or ordinary citizens – raised their cameras in order to snap pictures of them. Dean immediately put a hand up, obscuring his face.

"What the hell are you doing?" Sam asked, keeping his voice low enough that no one but Dean could hear him.

"What does it look like I'm doing?" Dean replied. "For all I know, my face could be hanging in every post office in the States. Digging up graves and breaking into condemned houses isn't exactly legal."

"Then why aren't you covering my face, too?" Sam asked, arching an eyebrow.

"You had different hair the last time you did any of that stuff," was Dean's reasoning. "Plus, you looked like you were ten then, and now you look at least twelve."

Sam scowled as Bill had the guard unlock the gate for them.

"So…can we go inside this thing?" Dean asked. Most of the people around them (or the ones with cameras, at least) had lost interest in the two of them, and so he'd dropped his hand from his face.

"I don't think so," Bill replied, waving them through the gate and then grimacing as a question was tossed from the crowd: "Was this reactor affected, too?" "We sealed the door, as far as I know. We didn't want any stupid teenagers sneaking in to get drunk and draw pentagrams on the walls."

Sam bit his tongue to hold back the lecture that automatically welled up in him whenever someone mentioned pentagrams distastefully or implied that they were symbols of Satan as he and Dean passed through the gate and Bill winced at the questions that were pouring out of the crowd now: "Is this reactor still a risk to us?" "Are we safe here?" "Why are you letting people in?"

"Jeez," Dean said, as they walked towards the building. "Give me a quiet, obscure case any day." He shot a look at Sam. "And _you're_ the only reason that we're here right now, so if I end up on the front page of some newspaper…"

"Yeah, whatever, it's not that big of a deal," Sam said, a little distracted. He had debated whether or not to even go through the gate, but they hadn't really had a choice. If they couldn't go inside the building, he wasn't sure that there was even a point in them being here, since they couldn't search for the mothman in the place that it had most likely been living.

"The hell it isn't." Walking quickly, they darted around the side of the building, which cut them off from the worst of the crowd and the rising fear among its members. They hugged the wall, which kept them a great distance away from the fence and the few people milling around behind it. Most looked at them for at least a few seconds, but they had both learned a long time ago that people ignored you if you just acted like you knew what you were doing, so they lost interest in them pretty quickly. Once they reached the back of the building, there were no people at all. Just frosted trees.

"I'm not sure how much we can do here," Sam said, giving voice to his thoughts. "I mean, we can't even go inside the building."

"But that dust that Cynthia showed us," Dean said. "They found it outside the building, didn't they?"

"I don't see how dust is gonna help us," Sam admitted, shaking his head as they walked.

"It rained last night, around ten," Dean began. He had that rare, bright look on his face that meant that he'd figured something out before Sam did, and knew it. "So all of this probably froze around ten-thirty." He kicked at the grass. "The mothman comes out later at night. At least, it did in all the accounts that we listened to. And the dust must fall off its wings when it flies."

"Like a moth," Sam blurted. He felt like a moron as soon as it was out of his mouth.

But Dean smiled and nodded. "Like a moth," he agreed. "Or a butterfly." Sam didn't immediately understand the fond expression that flickered across his face, and it was gone before he could puzzle it out.

"So if we find dust on top of the ice, that means that it's still here," Sam said, catching on to Dean's reasoning. Finally. "It flew last night. And something else is going to happen."

Dean tapped his nose, and they kept walking. He spoke after a couple of minutes. "Even if it's still here, though, we need to leave. There's nothing we can do. We're hunters, not nuclear engineers, and as useful as a few extra limbs might be, I'd rather not get hit with a dose of radiation."

"We could warn the people who are nuclear engineers," Sam said. Dean just looked at him, and asked, "You don't watch a whole lot of horror movies, do you?"

Sam just laughed, humorlessly. He didn't watch horror movies for the same reason that he imagined a lot of soldiers didn't watch war movies: it was boring and even painful to watch something when you were living it on a daily basis.

They didn't find any wing-dust, which went a long way towards calming Sam down. They didn't even find any that was apparent under the frost, so the police or the janitors or the workers of the plant themselves must have swept most of it up. As they were inspecting a silvery lump that turned out to be a frozen toadstool, Sam looked up, blinked, and softly said, "Butterflies." A room full of them in the middle of summer.

Dean nodded again, smiled, and repeated, "Butterflies." Sam didn't think twice about stepping into his arms for a nuzzle that warmed him from head to toe, but he was glad that there was no one on this side of the building to see them.

They walked back, past the crowd and towards the gate. The panicked questions had died down, but Sam caught a flash of something else as the guard saw them and pulled out his keys: black. Solid black eyes, set obscenely into a human face. He stiffened, and Dean noticed.

"What's up?" he asked. They hadn't stopped walking.

"I…" Sam knew that if he told Dean he'd seen a demon, his brother would turn this place upside down and terrorize the townspeople until he either found the thing or became convinced that it had moved on. And, in face, Sam wasn't even sure that he had really seen a demon. The light was disorienting, diamond-bright and crisp. And the natural state in which someone like Sam spent most of his time was, of course, paranoia. Sam shook off the numbing fear. "I'm cold."

"Well, we'll get you in the car and turn the heat on," Dean announced. "And then we'll see if we can't find a case somewhere warmer."

"Sounds good," Sam said. He kept discreetly scanning the crowd for black eyes. He didn't find any, but he unconsciously walked as close as he could get to Dean anyway.


	22. Chapter Twenty-two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last one for awhile. I wrote it almost two months ago...since then, I've been working on my entry for the Big Bang challenge.

_Sam knelt on the freezing ground, shoulders hunched, head bowed, and eyes squeezed shut against the icy, stinging air around him. He felt small and fragile, as if he were a toddler again, aware that the world was frightening and cruel but unable to understand what made it that way. He was surrounded by massive, shadowy figures that stood in a ring around him, as tall and imposing as the redwood trees in the park that he and Jess had visited one holiday weekend. Their faces were lost in the darkness above him, but he knew that they were staring down at him in hatred and disgust. He was terrified, but he wouldn't have been able to run away even if he tried - his calves were encased in ice, holding him firmly in place._

_He was so cold, wearing nothing more than loose jeans and a leather jacket draped over his shoulders. And the lining of that jacket felt like it was made of acid. Voices boomed down at him, deep and angry parodies of people he knew, making his ribs and teeth shake in their moorings. And his back bend further, bringing his face closer and closer to the ice, under the weight of their insults and accusations._

_"Pervert!"_

_"Freak!"_

_"Whore!"_

_"Faggot!"_

_"Sodomite!"_

"Sammy?"

_"Slut!"_

_"Monster!"_

_"Adulterer!"_

_"You ruined your family!"_

_"Sick!"_

"Sam." __

_"Incest!"_

_"You were old enough to know better!"_

_"Foul! Twisted!"_

_"You should have stopped him!"_

_Sam shook, and whimpered. It felt like every word struck him with the force of an aluminum baseball bat. There was one voice, though...he couldn't quite pick it out among all the others, but it wasn't the same as them. It wasn't attacking him, and it wasn't nearly as distorted. That was a good voice. Maybe he should try and focus on it._

_"Abomination!"_

_"You gave up the woman you wanted to marry to fuck your brother!"_

_"You lost your virginity at thirteen. To family."_

"Sammy, c'mon, wake up." __

_"Sinner!"_

_"This is why your father is gone - he couldn't stand to look at Dean. Because of you."_

_"You deserve to die."_

_"Impure!"_

"You're having a nightmare." __

_"You're going to Hell!"_

_"What would your mother - "_

_A hand suddenly gripped Sam's shoulder. It was firm, and it sent the acid of the jacket eating deep into his skin, but he rallied towards it. He dragged his own hand up, and clapped it over the other, clutching with frozen fingers._

"Yeah, attaboy. Come on. Wake up." __

 _Sam sucked in a deep breath as the voices all around him faded, and the_ air was warm in his lungs, instead of searingly cold. He blinked rapidly, clearing away the last of the nightmare. He wasn't kneeling in ice. He was twisted into a very uncomfortable position in the Impala's passenger seat. He groaned in pain, realizing that he'd started cramping up around fifteen minutes ago, then heaved himself up and out until the agony and discomfort eased. Dean's hand was still on his shoulder, and he was still holding it.

"You okay?" Dean asked, voice wary with concern. Sam glanced at him and nodded, realizing that his heart was thundering in his chest and he was breathing like he'd just sprinted five hundred yards. He focused on putting a stop to both.

"Yeah," he said. It came out breathless. He let go of Dean's hand. "Just a nightmare."

"I could kinda tell," Dean said. Very slowly, he let go of Sam's shoulder, and put that hand back on the Impala's wheel. "You were making some pretty awful sounds." He glanced at him, as a mostly-empty highway whipped past outside the car. "So, what was it? Werewolf? Skinwalker? You definitely sounded like something was digging your heart out."

Sam blinked, the gesture slow and liquid, and realized that Dean didn't know that most of his dreams hadn't featured monsters since he was thirteen. Of course they popped up every once in awhile - he'd locked horns with the damn things almost monthly since childhood, they stuck in his mind. But he had better things to worry about at night, nine times out of ten. Like their father finding out about their relationship, or someone else stumbling upon them, or Dean being injured or killed and leaving Sam all alone without (he'd been convinced) the only person he could ever love. After he'd left, Sam had had nightmares about his father arriving at Stanford and telling everyone he knew what he was, and about passing some weird STD that you could only get through incest on to Jess. Hell, he'd had nightmares about Dean getting him pregnant, and the child being hideously deformed because its parents were siblings. Logic rarely had any bearing on these scenarios.

Dean didn't need to know any of that. Before, he would have kept it from him out of spite, but now, he didn't want him to find out that what they had with each other caused Sam so much stress and self-loathing.

"A demon," Sam said, and even though Dean had turned his attention back to the road as they hit a series of deep curves, he saw him frown.

"You don't really need to be afraid of those," Dean told him. "They're easy to deal with - circle of salt and then an exorcism. And we got rid of that one back in Nevada."

He pronounced "Nevada" in the eastern way, with a long "a." Dean's accent had always been much thicker than Sam's, and that was something that Sam was very aware of as he opened his mouth and said, "Yeah, I know." Just for the sake of conversation, he asked, "You don't think that this new thing is a demon, do you?"

Dean shook his head with a snort. "This is a ghost case. Open and shut."

They were going to Telluride, Colorado. Heading southwest had been Dean's idea; he wanted to warm Sam up, after the shivering in Pennsylvania. Very luckily for them, a perfect case had been pretty much dropped in their laps, by a friendly and helpful Bobby who seemed eager to make up for lost time: a mostly-abandoned apartment building, scheduled for demolition as soon as the handful of elderly tenants still living there moved out, had begun to display textbook signs of haunting by a vengeful spirit. Random cold spots, objects lying broken in rooms no one had been in for hours, screams and sobbing in the middle of the night. They'd already done research, and the most likely candidate seemed to be Agnes Cottam, who had fallen down the stairs and broken pretty much every bone in her body ten years prior. All they would have to do was show up, find whatever was tying her to Earth, and then salt and burn it. It would be almost laughably easy. But after the utter disappointment of their last hunt, they could probably use an easy victory.

"You could go back to sleep, if you want," Dean offered. "We've still got a couple of hours to go."

Sam felt suddenly, painfully cold, and found himself shaking his head. "No," he replied. He couldn't risk another nightmare like that - it would probably give him a heart attack. "I'm okay."

He acted as copilot instead, and did his best not to bitch when Dean popped a Metallica tape into the deck and turned the volume up so high that the body of the car shook. Thankfully, he turned it off around sunset, when they entered town. Checking into the Value Lodge was easy, the clerk a skinny and complacent redhead who looked too young to smoke but had a clove cigarette dangling precariously from her lower lip anyway. They carried their bags into the room that they had been given, but while Sam immediately collapsed onto the mattress of the king-sized bed with a quiet groan, Dean made a beeline for the tiny bathroom. He left a trail of clothes behind him, and the shower stuttered on with a high-pitched whine a few seconds after he closed the door.

Sam laid on his stomach, head turned to the side so that he could watch the door through half-closed eyes. He felt grimy, after spending the last few days traveling, and he ached - he was used to sitting in a lecture hall all day, but not the leather seats of the Impala. He didn't want to wait for Dean to get out to take a shower of his own. He didn't even want to shower by himself.

Sam rolled onto his back, arching and then curving his spine as he pulled his T-shirt off. He kicked his feet free of his boots, then peeled away his jeans and socks. His boxers were the very last thing, and he hesitated as he hooked his thumbs beneath the elastic waistband of them. The pause didn't last long, though. He might be a pervert and a freak, but at least he wasn't alone in his sickness.

Completely naked, Sam opened the bathroom door, then flicked off the light. Dean made a startled sound from behind the opaque plastic curtain, but cut it off abruptly when Sam pulled that curtain back and stepped into the tub with him. The surprisingly-strong spray immediately matted his dark hair to his scalp. He could see little more than vague shapes with the light off, but he reached out and found Dean's shoulders easily enough.

"We have to be careful," he murmured. Showering with Dean was one thing. Having Dean touch his dick or his ass in the shower was another entirely.

"I figured," Dean replied, but he sounded more amused than disappointed. Sam heard the squirt and wheeze of a squeeze bottle, and then Dean was working the cheap, unscented shampoo that he'd used for as long as Sam could remember into Sam's hair.

He stood still, for the most part, and kept his eyes closed. The dirt and sweat didn't last long, and the hot water combined with Dean's sinfully skilled fingers to get rid of all of his aches and pains. Their father stayed completely quiet in his head, and after Sam fell asleep in a warm bed with his hair damp and his older brother's arm draped protectively over him, he didn't have a single nightmare.

\--------------------------------------------------------------------

"I think I'm making some real progress," Sam said into the coolness of the early morning air.

"Mm-hm. I think so, too," Dean said with a nod, raising the insulated cup in his hand to his mouth and sipping at what was inside. Immediately, he jerked it away from his lips with a noise of disgust. "Oh, my god. What _is_ this stuff?"

"That's French roast, Dean," Sam said dryly, putting his hands in the pockets of his uniform. He'd finished his own coffee on the drive over. "It's gourmet. It's expensive."

"Well, it tastes like crap...is there caffeine in it?" When Sam nodded, Dean grimaced and took another sip. He smacked his lips, then got the conversation back on track. "What I wanna know is what you're making progress _against_." He regarded Sam with level green eyes. Sam almost instantly felt uncomfortable.

"Who says I have to be making it against anything?" he asked. "Maybe I'm just making progress. I took a shower with you last night. Naked."

"Yeah, I kinda noticed," Dean said with a tiny smirk. The smirk turned into a frown when he took a third sip of his coffee. "I'm just saying: most of the time, when we're doing stuff like that - stuff that we used to to - you seem like you're really struggling against something."

"Well, I'm not." Sam tossed in a breathless little chuckle to make the statement sound more authentic.

"Okay," Dean said agreeably, taking a long pull from his coffee. It must have cooled down quite a bit, for him to be able to do that.

The conversation ended after that, leaving them in silence. They were outside the haunted apartment building. It was seven in the morning, and no one in the immediate area seemed to be awake yet, considering they'd been leaning against the Impala for about ten minutes without catching sight of any movement. It was a little chilly, but hadn't frosted last night. Sam was grateful for that, because he doubted the jumpsuit that he was wearing would have done anything to protect him from the cold. It was made of thin, navy blue fabric, cut in the universal style of mechanics, electricians, and janitors. Dean was wearing pretty much the same thing; they'd rented them from a uniform company, which translated to a fair bit of money down the drain, but Sam was rather glad to see it go, since Dean had confided in him that he'd taken most of the bills off of corpses. This outfit was definitely not what Sam would have chosen to fight ghosts in, but FBI suits wouldn't work this time, and neither would their street clothes.

"Ah. Finally." Dean nudged Sam as a small blue Pinto, at least twenty years old, pulled jerkily into the building's parking lot. It came to a stop in the small section reserved for employees, emitting a death rattle as its driver climbed out. The sound must not have been new, because he didn't look particularly bothered by it. He was around Sam's age, an inch or two shorter than Dean, and had the longest, prettiest mane of white-blond hair Sam had ever seen on a guy who wasn't Orlando Bloom. He assumed, at least, since it was currently pulled back into a tight and business-like ponytail. The style went with the generic gray security uniform that he was wearing. He also had on a large and awkward-looking neck brace.

He must have seen Sam and Dean on his way in, because he walked straight over to them after getting out of his car. He kept his hands casually in his pockets, but Sam spotted a taser and a heavy metal flashlight that could easily double as a club hanging from his belt.

"Hey," the security guard greeted easily. He had a clip-on name tag that read FRIEDRICKS. "Can I help you two with something?"

"You sure can." Dean drained his coffee, then tossed the cup into a nearby trash can. "I'm Dean, this is Sam." He pointed. "One of your tenants called our company. Sounded pretty concerned with the electricity, pipes, heating. That kind of thing."

"We've definitely been having some problems lately," the guard admitted. "I'm Austin." He offered a hand to Dean, then Sam. His fingers were cold when Sam shook. The heater in his battered old dinosaur of a car was probably broken. "Who called?"

Dean shrugged apologetically. "Boss didn't say," he admitted. Sam wished he could lie half as well.

"That's okay. Come on in." Austin turned, and gestured for them to follow him as he started walking. Dean bent and grabbed the heavy metal toolbox next to his foot. "Just lemme send Hayden home - he's been on duty all night - and then I'll unlock the stairs for you guys."

"You keep the door to the stairs locked?" Sam asked with a frown. Austin glanced back over his shoulder and raised a pale eyebrow.

"We've only got six tenants left, and they're all over seventy," he said. "They don't do stairs. Especially not since Agnes took her tumble."

"That was a while back, wasn't it?" Dean asked. "They're all still spooked by it, huh?"

Austin nodded (sort of) as he unlocked the door to the lobby. His movements were stiff and clumsy, because he couldn't look down to see what he was doing - the brace was in the way. "Oh, yeah. I was still in middle school then, but I heard about it - it was pretty horrible. She was the only one who used the stairs back then. Now, it's me. But anyway, the fall didn't kill her." He stepped inside the building. Sam and Dean followed. "She laid there for almost a day before she finally went into a coma and died. Arms, legs, pelvis, ribs, and jaw...all broken." Austin seemed to be enjoying telling them this, which Sam guessed he could understand. This was his town's horror story, after all. "Nobody heard her screaming, and they didn't find her until it was too late."

"I can see how that would scare people," Sam murmured as Austin rapped on a nondescript door that probably led to a small office.

"Mind if we talk to the super?" Dean asked. An older man wearing a uniform identical to Austin's opened the door and stepped out. He was graying heavily and slightly overweight, and kept rubbing at eyes that were very obviously bleary with sleep. He left without saying a word to Austin. Or Sam and Dean, for that matter. "We don't wanna step on anybody's toes here."

"He's out of town," Austin replied. "Has been for a couple weeks. That's probably why one of the tenants called you guys."

"He just left?" Sam asked, a little skeptically. "Do you have any idea why he'd do that?"

"He was scared," Austin answered. He was leaning backwards against the door, hands in his pockets again and posture awkward because of the brace on his neck. Dean put down the toolbox that he'd carried inside (Sam had helped him pack it this morning) with a _clang_ , then folded his arms across his chest. Sam interpreted it as more of an attempt to get comfortable than a display of aggression.

"What was he scared of?" Dean asked. Austin made a weird movement, and Sam realized that he was trying to shake his head.

"It's stupid," he said. "You don't need to know."

Dean laughed. "Well, now you gotta tell us - you got us interested." He stared at Austin expectantly, and Sam was glad to realize that Dean had the patience to coax the information out of this guy, rather than putting any pressure on him.

Austin hesitated, then shrugged. "Guess it can't hurt," he decided. "You're probably not gonna believe me, anyway."

"Just try us," Sam said with a smile. After another moment of hesitation, Austin did.

"There might be a problem with the pipes," he began. "Causing them to make all of those weird noises. There might be a problem with the heating, too - the vents might be blocked in certain areas." He straightened up. "But there's something else going on in this building."

Sam exchanged a look with Dean. "What d'you mean?"

"I'm not crazy," Austin said immediately. "I don't believe in monsters or ghosts or anything like that. But I've been working here for three years - paying my way through night school - " Pride flickered in his eyes. " - and nothing has ever happened. Then a week ago..." He put a hand on his brace, the gesture almost unconscious. "Something that I couldn't see _threw_ me down a flight of stairs. Cracked three vertebrae. My doctor couldn't believe I'd lived."

Another look. "You sure you didn't just trip?" Dean asked.

Austin snorted. "I know how it sounds. But I was ten or twelve feet away from the stairs at the time - it threw me through a _door_."

 _"Wow,"_ Dean said. Sam raised his eyebrows and silently echoed the sentiment. A ghost had to be pretty strong to manhandle someone like that; the agony of Agnes's prolonged death must have driven her spirit completely insane.

Austin crossed the small, rather shabby lobby instead of answering, pulling a key ring off of his belt and unlocking a door that must lead to the stairs. "Do you want me to evacuate the tenants while you work?"

"Nah, let 'em stay," Dean said with a shrug. "I really doubt we're gonna blow the building up; and besides. We might need to talk to them." Austin disappeared into his office with a nod of understanding, and Dean picked up the toolbox. Once they were on the stairs, he asked Sam, "So, what's your take?"

"It's definitely Agnes," Sam responded. "I mean, throwing people down the stairs? That's almost exactly how she died. It's like she wants other people to understand how bad it was for her."

"But why go after the security guard?" Dean asked, shaking his head. "Austin wasn't anywhere near this building when she died. Why wouldn't she try and get revenge on someone who actually lived here then and didn't help her?"

"Maybe she doesn't blame them," Sam guessed. They'd stopped on a landing, having reached the next floor but both of them wanting to keep talking. "She might just be mad at authority figures. People whose job it was to help her."

"Okay..." Dean didn't look convinced, but shrugged after a second, brushing it off. "I guess it doesn't really matter why a ghost does what she does, just so long as we get rid of her before she hurts anybody else." He adjusted his grip on the handle of his toolbox. "That police report that you dug up said that Aggie lived on the second floor, apartment two-fifteen. She tripped coming down from the fifth floor."

"Yeah - borrowing a casserole dish from Catherine Razin," Sam agreed with a nod.

"I'll check out the second floor, and her apartment." Dean dropped into a crouch, putting the toolbox down and flipping its lid open. "You can look at the stairs where she fell. See if there's anything that might be keeping her here." He pulled out a flashlight, a decent-sized bottle of lighter fluid, and a sawed-off loaded with salt rounds, and handed all three to Sam. "Blood. Hair. Clothes. Hell, maybe her cameo brooch snapped off and got wedged under one of the steps."

"Her cameo brooch?" Sam repeated with raised eyebrows. Dean stood up, toolbox in hand.

"Well, she was old," he said defensively. Turning away from Sam, he added, "See you soon. Yell if you get in trouble."

"You, too," Sam replied. He turned and continued up the stairs while Dean pushed through the door that led to the second floor. He carried the flashlight in one hand, the gun in the other, and the lighter fluid in one of his pockets. He had his own lighter. It was one of the things that he'd been conditioned to never leave home (or whatever motel room was currently passing as home) without. Like his wallet, or a switchblade.

He'd barely reached the staircase that led to the fourth floor when the lights died. There was no warning - they didn't flare up or buzz or anything. Sam stopped, and scowled up at the lightbulbs that were still glowing faintly with residual heat.

"A ghost hunt in the dark," he muttered, dropping his gaze again and switching on the flashlight with a thumb. And right after he and Dean had split up, too. This wasn't a cliche at all.

Refusing to conform to the usual stereotypes that surrounded college students in ghost-happy horror movies, Sam did his best to ignore the power outage, and just kept searching for any trace of Agnes Cottam. That didn't mean that he wasn't aware of the danger of standing on a staircase with a ghost who liked to throw people down them running around; he held his gun at the ready. But he didn't let it get the best of him. At least, he thought that he didn't. Until he heard a slight sound behind him.

Sam spun, gun instantly swinging up to chest level as his finger tightened on the trigger and his body stiffened. He was currently on a landing, so he assumed that whoever was behind him would be level with him, and he was right. When he saw Legolas hair and a gray uniform, he relaxed. Good thing he hadn't shot as soon as he turned around. He let out a breath that he'd apparently been holding, then lowered the gun.

"You scared me, man," he told Austin, a shaky grin spreading across his face. He suddenly remembered that he was supposed to be some sort of handyman, and he'd just been pointing a very illegal weapon at a security guard. He glanced down at the sawed-off. "Uh. I know how this looks, but this is just - "

"Power went out," Austin interrupted calmly. Sam blinked, caught off guard, then slowly nodded.

"It sure did," he agreed. "I - "

Austin cut him off again. "I thought it would take longer than it did."

His voice was still perfectly mild. Sam squinted a little, confused and trying not to be. It suddenly occurred to him that there was something different about Austin, and it didn't take him long to figure out what it was: the brace was gone, leaving his neck naked and surprisingly slender. The longer Sam looked at him, the more his head seemed to be wobbling on it, as unstable as that of an infant. He was about to ask him if he was all right when his head began to fall to the side, slowly at first, before speeding up and locking into a grotesque and horrifying position with a wet crunch. The placid expression on his face never changed. His neck was badly broken, his spinal cord severed - just as it probably had been for a week.

Sam tried to get the gun up again, but he was too slow. Both the sawed-off and the flashlight were yanked out of his hands with a flick of Austin's wrist, and he himself was flung up against the wall with enough force to knock the breath out of his lungs when the dead man raised a palm to him. The gun went flying down the stairs, but the flashlight struck the opposite wall and skittered to the floor. It flickered for a moment, the batteries probably jarred by the impact, but didn't go out. It backlit Austin perfectly as he put a hand on his head and wrenched it back into position, then approached Sam.

"You've got no idea how tough it is to work with a damaged vessel," he said. His tone was conversational, but the cadences and nuances of his voice had changed. Whatever was wearing his corpse had completely stopped trying to imitate the real Austin, letting itself come through. "It's not like a broken neck is actually painful for me, but it's a little annoying that his head won't even stay upright."

Sam swallowed. He was spreadeagled against the wall, elbows bent and palms flat against the faded and stained wallpaper. He couldn't lift a single finger; it was as if a thick comforter full of lead had been thrown over him.

"Agnes?" he asked quietly. There was just enough light for him to see Austin blink, and then narrow his eyes. Their whites were suddenly flooded by black, with a flicking sound.

 _"No!"_ he all but snarled. "Did you really think that that wrinkled old bitch had the power to take over a body? Especially a dead one." He shook his head, producing a meaty grinding sound that made Sam queasy. "I've never seen a more pathetic ghost. Guarded the stairs. She _caught_ this moron the first two times I tried to throw him down them." He smacked a hand against his own chest, hard enough to hurt. "She refused to cooperate. I had to tear her to pieces to get her to stop interfering."

"You're a demon," Sam said. Austin didn't react. "Why did you kill him?"

"Well, first of all, I needed a vessel stronger than Jeb Mease in four-oh-two," the demon said. Sam was a little surprised that it had answered his question, but also pleased. He just needed to stall it until Dean came looking for him. "And, second of all, this one _knew_ things. He was the son of a priest who performed exorcisms. He tried to get rid of me - he cared so much about these useless geezers. He was studying to be a nurse, you know. Such a strong, pure soul." He smiled. "He's gone now. Him and Agnes. Oh, and the superintendent."

Sam's breathing quickened. He wished they'd gotten here sooner. That they hadn't dicked around so much on Three Mile Island. Austin Friedricks and the building's super might still be alive, and the benevolent ghost of Agnes Cottam might still exist.

"I knew you'd come." Austin's voice had dropped into a purr that sounded oddly feminine to Sam. "You and your brother. I knew that you'd show up eventually. I knew you'd come to me." He reached up and took hold of Sam's chin with one hand, stroking the line of his jaw almost lovingly. "And I can't tell you how _happy_ I am to see you again, Sam."

Sam scrambled through his memories. A name popped out of his mouth: "Lucy."

An eyebrow rose. "Is that what you freaks call me? It could be worse, I suppose."

"What do you want with me?" Sam asked quietly.

"The most petty, basic thing I could possibly want," Lucy replied. "Revenge. You hurt me badly - you sent me back to Hell, took my vessel and my ghosts away from me. I want you and your brother to get what you deserve."

"So you're going to kill me?" Sam asked, mustering a note of defiance. Even though he was so scared he could barely speak. "And him, too?"

Lucy threw Austin's head back and laughed. Sam heard the back of his skull hit the area between his shoulder blades, and his neck bulged sickeningly at the site of the break. It snapped back up, and their foreheads were almost touching as Lucy grinned at him.

"Kill you?" she asked. "Where would the fun in that be?"

Austin's mouth remained wide open, even after she'd finished talking. Sam suddenly knew exactly what was coming, and struggled to close his own mouth, but Austin's icy fingers tightened their grip on his chin and yanked it down. Greasy black smoke boiled out of Austin's mouth. It glittered obscenely in the glow from the flashlight as it coursed down Sam's throat, wrapping around every organ and slipping into every vein. He could _feel_ it, and his stomach started to heave in an effort to expel the demon, but it stilled when the last of the smoke left Austin. His broken body tumbled to the ground, and Sam fell back onto his feet, swaying on them. Tears of helplessness and fear stung at his eyes as a much older, much darker mind effortlessly pushed his aside and took control of him, but the sensation didn't last for long.

 _Pervert,_ Lucy purred. _Weakling._

Sam screamed, but it never reached his mouth.


	23. Chapter Twenty-three

Dean was checking out the old lady's apartment when the lights decided to call it quits.

He mumbled a curse under his breath, but not a very bad one. He was fairly used to the power giving out on ghost hunts. Something about them - probably the electro-magnetic field they gave off, he remembered Sam theorizing - really messed with any and every sort of wiring. The stronger the ghost, the greater the disturbance. And from what the security guard with the fancy hair had told them about being thrown down the stairs, Agnes was more than strong enough to kill a building full of lights.

He put down the toolbox that he'd been carrying around, kneeling in front of it and flipping it open. The damn thing was filled to the brim with gear, so heavy that his shoulder had been complaining even back when he and Sam split up, but he was grateful for everything he'd crammed in there now. Navigating by touch, since the windows were blocked by heavy curtains, he pulled out a flashlight and a shotgun. One he turned on, the other he flicked the safety off of.

Standing up with a grunt, Dean warily turned in a full circle, sweeping the beam of light around the room that he was in. Agnes'd been dead for a while, so the place was pretty empty. One loveseat draped with a yellowing sheet in here, a touch lamp lying on its side, bulbless, in the bedroom, a plastic cup in the kitchen. Things no one had wanted, Dean guessed. Kind of sad, when you thought about it, but not really all that interesting. He'd already checked them for pieces of Agnes and come up empty.

Dean heard muffled voices behind him, and tensed up as he spun around, sawed-off at the read. He relaxed when he didn't see anything but an empty wall, covered in faded paper and squares that showed where pictures had once hung. Just the neighbors.

Lowering the shotgun, Dean wondered for a second if, maybe, he should go find Sam. Check up on him, since the lights had gone out and all. Now might be a good time to touch base. But even though things were going about a million times better between the two of them, Dean might be able to screw it all up by making Sam think that he was coddling him.

It wasn't like he didn't have a flashlight. Sam was a big boy, he could handle himself. Dean would catch up to him later; he wasn't quite finished here.

He kept the curtains closed as he examined the carpet in each room and checked the tiny bathroom. An aggressive ghost would be way easier to see and shoot in the dark. After he spent a few more minutes tapping on the walls to make sure that there wasn't anything stashed behind them that Agnes might be tied to, Dean was forced to admit that the apartment was clean. He hoped that Sam had had better luck on the stairs.

He put the shotgun back in his toolbox but kept the flashlight out, since he doubted that the power was gonna come back on again anytime soon. The ghost had probably fried the circuits completely. Dean juggled the heavy toolbox and the flashlight as he got the door open and stepped out into the near-black hallway. He nudged it closed with the heel of his boot; it hadn't been locked. He couldn't wait to torch whatever was left of Agnes and get out of this place. It didn't feel like there were real people living here.

A door opened. Dean immediately looked in its direction, wishing, for a second, that he hadn't put the shotgun up. But the little old lady he saw was very solid, holding a candle and wearing a faded pink housecoat as she leaned out the doorway of her apartment.

"Sorry, ma'am." Dean shook his head apologetically, a lie almost instantly popping into his mouth. Years of practice. "I'm only here to take a look at the pipes. I'm definitely not an electrician - you'll have to call somebody else about this." He gestured to the dead, useless lights above him with his flashlight. "I'd probably do more harm than good."

"Oh." The lady seemed a little disapproving, but he wasn't really sure why. "Well, see that you do do something about the plumbing." She turned and shuffled back into her apartment. "The water smells terrible these days."

"Yes, ma'am." Dean waited until her door was firmly closed to turn around and walk back towards the stairwell, intending to catch up with Sam. Did he feel bad about leaving a bunch of geezers in the dark? Yeah, of course he did. But he was good with cars, not buildings. And he was sure that that girly-haired security guy, the one with the broken neck, would be able to get the power back on sooner or later.

Austin. That was his name - or his first one, anyway. Dean couldn't remember his last one off the top of his head, and couldn't be bothered to dredge it up, either.

Dean reached for the handle of the door that led to the stairs with two fingers of his flashlight hand, the others still wrapped firmly around the handle, but it swung open on its own right before he could touch it. He jerked his hand back, biting down on a blistering curse that almost made it out of him anyway. Why the hell was he so jumpy today, on a routine ghost hunt? How many mini-heart attacks was he going to have?

"Goddammit," he said, shaking his head as he aimed his flashlight at Sam where he was standing in the doorway. "You scared the crap outta me."

"Sorry," Sam replied with a shrug. For just a second, a trick of the light or maybe a spasm of Dean's wrist had thrown the upper half of his face into shadow under his bangs, making his eyes look black. Now Dean could see them just fine, though, bright and clear and a washed-out blue because of the boiler suit he was wearing. "I didn't mean to."

"Yeah, whatever." Dean shouldered past him. Or tried to, at least. Sam stepped right out of his way. "Anyway." He turned to look at Sam again as the door swung shut. "I came up with a big, steaming pile of nothing...how'd things go on your end?"

"Not so great, once the lights went out," Sam said with a grimace. "Austin kinda made it sound like Agnes attacked him in broad daylight, but she must've been more comfortable in the dark. She came right at me."

"She did?" Dean felt a very familiar swell of old-fashioned big-brotherly protectiveness in his chest. He reached for Sam, intending to put two fingers under his chin and turn his head so that he could examine his smooth face for bruises. "Did she manage t - "

He abruptly cut himself off, feeling like his tongue had died in his mouth. Because Sam had flinched away from him. The movement had been jerky, like he was trying to stifle the reflex. But it was pretty damn obvious that he didn't want to be touched. Or maybe he just didn't want Dean to touch him. Dean dismissed that thought, though, because it didn't make any sense. Not with last night's Sam-initiated shared shower.

"Hey," Dean said, dropping his hand and his voice. Down into that tender octave he used almost exclusively for the kid - well, young man, now, he guessed - in front of him. "What's wrong, Sammy?"

Sam flinched again. Unmistakably at the nickname.

What the hell?

_Thought we were past this shit._

"Nnothing," Sam replied, drawing the beginning of the word out just a little longer than he had to. "She didn't even touch me. I got her with the shotgun - full on. Which reminds me."

He offered his sawed-off to Dean, who, reluctantly, took it. He put it back in the toolbox, kneeling in order to do so, and glanced up at Sam after a second.

"Are you really okay?" he asked quietly.

"Yeah, I'm fine," Sam responded, a frown flickering across his mouth as he stared down at Dean. "I just told you." He started down the stairs, walking past him. Dean grabbed the toolbox and hurried to catch up. "Oh. You were right, by the way."

"Right about what?" Dean asked blankly. His mind was running high gear and he was still confused. Something was off, something Sam's behavior pointed to, but he couldn't put a finger on it.

"The blood." Sam glanced back at him over his shoulder. "I found some under one of the steps, and I torched it." He pulled the small bottle of lighter fluid that Dean had given him out of the pocket of his suit and gave it a little shake, making it slosh. "I think that that took care of her."

"Oh. Good." Dean hadn't even thought to ask if there was still a murderous ghost running around. Maybe Dad had had a point about how unhealthy his dependence on Sam was.

They reached another landing. Sam stopped, so Dean did, too. He blinked as his younger brother offered him a second frown. "Are  _you_  okay?"

"Why d'you ask?" Dean shook his head. "I told you I didn't find anything. My day was totally free of old bag ghost encounters, which is just fine by me."

"You're just...acting a little weird."

Dean swallowed quietly to keep a knee-jerk I'm  _acting weird?_  from jumping up his throat. Yeah, Sam had some serious issues. Issues that, when he really thought about it, had started cropping up in those strange, distant few months right before he'd left for Stanford, when Dean had been afraid to touch him. And he had a real aversion to talking about whatever it was that made it so damn hard for him to be with Dean like he had when they were kids, which he'd made painfully obvious this morning - but he was trying. He was trying  _so hard_  that it made something deep inside of Dean ache and throb with sympathy practically every time he looked at him. He couldn't nitpick, he couldn't push. Sam had been right earlier when he said he was making progress, and that was what Dean should be focusing on. Not him backsliding a little after something as stressful as being charged by a powerful and dangerous ghost.

So, instead of calling Sam out on the flinching, Dean said, "Sorry. Just something about this hunt - I don't know. Kinda put me on edge, I guess." He shrugged, casually, with one shoulder.

Sam frowned yet again. Dean hated that, hated the fact that he was the cause of it. Sam was going to have wrinkles by the time he was twenty-five, at this rate. He worried too much.

"Really?" he asked Dean. "I thought it went really well. Just...in and out, nobody hurt or dead." He made a quirky little gesture with his free hand, the one that wasn't holding the flashlight. "Look, I know you're really not the... _sensitive_  type, but d'you feel better at all now that Agnes is dead?"

"Yeah," Dean lied as a cool prickle traipsed down his spine.

"Well, then, maybe that was it." Sam glanced down the next flight of stairs, then back to Dean with a fresh, open smile. He looked way better when he smiled. "Even if it wasn't..." He spread his arms. "We're all done here. What d'you say we ditch these costumes and go get some lunch?"

"Sounds freaking awesome, is what I say," Dean replied, leading the way down the stairs himself this time. He must have been imagining that something was up with Sam. He'd been a hunter for almost twenty years; he was paranoid as hell, and he could admit it. "But only if I get to choose the place."

* * *

"Yeah. No." One of Sam's massive hands seemed to appear out of nowhere, almost daintily plucking the laminated card of the drinks menu out of Dean's grasp and returning it to its wire holder. "I don't think so."

Dean spread his now-empty hands in exasperation, raising a glare to Sam's mild gaze. "Seriously?"

"You're driving," Sam replied, picking up his own menu. Not the drinks one, either. Just the normal one. Dean waited for some elaboration, but, apparently, Sam thought that that was a good enough explanation for making him go thirsty.

"One beer ain't gonna waste me," Dean pointed out. He was a big guy, and besides. Practice had raised his threshold pretty high.

"No," Sam agreed, eyes still on the menu. "But I'm pretty sure we both know that you're not gonna have just one beer." He finally looked at Dean, wearing his absolute best, unimpressed "I-know-you" expression.

"Bitch," Dean accused.

"Jerk," Sam replied easily. "Wanna split a number seven? Comes with an order of hot wings."

"And a salad," Dean noted dubiously, checking it out on his own menu. Sam just smiled at him. It took him a second to find it in himself to smile back.

If Sam wanted to put to bed any lingering doubts Dean might have had after the hunt, convince him that everything was completely okay with him, then he probably couldn't have been doing a better job. He'd pulled a completely classic bitchface when Dean had chosen a fast food driveway for lunch. He'd insisted that they'd actually return the uniforms they'd rented instead of just tossing them in the trunk for future use. And he'd argued his way into choosing where they ate dinner (because Dean had picked for lunch), then promptly selected a classy-looking pizza joint with a plethora of healthy options on their menu. Where he'd stopped him from ordering a beer, of course.

He was acting so totally normal, in fact, that he could've been a caricature of himself. If it hadn't been for a few things that threw his whole act off. Things that practically screamed to Dean that something had changed.

First of all, there'd been the little incident that'd occurred when they got back to the motel room to get the uniforms off. As soon as he'd gotten inside, Sam had made a beeline for the bathroom without saying a single word to Dean, closed the door, and locked it behind him. The  _click_  of the cheap lock sliding home had been slow, quiet. Almost as if he felt guilty about it and didn't want Dean to hear. He'd peeled out of the light blue boiler suit in there, which Dean would have been able to understand if he'd been naked under it, but he'd had on a T-shirt and jeans. He got that Sam was occasionally gunshy about undressing in front of him, but he shouldn't've been uncomfortable there.

Second, there'd been the thing with the dressing. While Dean had ordered a double bacon cheeseburger with a side of chili fries for lunch (since he'd had yet to read about an active, fit twenty-six-year-old keeling over just from eating junk), Sam had gotten a salad. Predictably. It'd come in one of those pop-open plastic containers with a packet of Caesar dressing and a fork taped to the lid, but it'd still been a little messy, since they were eating in the car. Sam had gotten a little blob of dressing at the corner of his mouth that he hadn't noticed but Dean had. Completely blanking on Sam's earlier flinching, he thought that a quick little kiss would be a good (read: romantic, cute, all that crap that Sam seemed to appreciate) way to clean it up.

He'd been wrong. He hadn't even made contact before Sam jerked away, plastering himself up against the door and window with his eyes as wide as those of a deer caught in a semi's headlights. His salad wobbled precariously where it was still, by the grace of a god Dean really didn't believe in, perched on his knees. Dean just froze where he was, shocked and staring. With that kind of reaction, he had a sudden urge to check himself in the mirror, to make sure he hadn't popped a set of fangs halfway through his cheeseburger.

Sam tried to laugh it off, once he'd calmed down. Dean could tell he was pretty embarrassed, a faint pink flush overlaying his cheekbones as he speculated that he was still a little nervous after the run-in he'd had with Agnes earlier. Dean silently rolled the windows down to give him more room and took a long pull from his soda. He definitely didn't know what was going on, but he was pretty damn sure that he didn't buy Sam's bullshit explanation.

Then they'd watched TV back in the room, killing time until they got hungry again. Sam had suggested just taking off, but Dean wanted to stick around for at least another day, to make sure that they really had solved the apartment building's ghost problem. And besides: they hadn't found another case yet. So they flipped back and forth between the news channels. Sam chose to sit on the floor, back against the foot of the bed, instead of up on the mattress with Dean - which was the third thing. Maybe that wasn't quite weird enough to be classed in with the other stuff, but Dean still felt like it was out of character. Even if Sam didn't want to lean right up against him, he should have wanted to sit next to him. At least.

Dean folded his arms across his chest, rocking back in the booth as their waitress - a seventeen-year-old who, judging by her hunched shoulders and tight uniform, wasn't quite comfortable with her C-cups yet - approached. He pushed aside everything that'd happened earlier. He could obsess over it later. Maybe tonight, when he couldn't sleep. But for now, he should really try to focus on dinner. Food had always been a great distraction for him.

"I'll have a Coke," he told the waitress grudgingly, shooting a glance at Sam. He struggled not to roll his eyes when he smiled triumphantly.

The waitress nodded as she scribbled on her pad, holding it right in front of her chest. She glanced at Sam when she was finished. "What about you?"

"I just want water," Sam replied. The waitress repeated her nodding and scribbling, then hurried off. Dean turned his attention back to his younger brother.

"Probably should have told her we were ready to order," he pointed out. Sam shrugged, apparently not thinking that it was that big of a deal.

"She'll be back," he responded. He rested his chin (smooth-shaven, of course; Dean couldn't remember Sam ever making an effort to grow a beard, even when he first started hitting puberty) in one hand, eyes blank as he stared off at nothing in particular. Dean watched him for a little while, wondering what he was thinking about, noticing a few twitches in his face and dismissing them as the results of exhaustion. He mustered up his courage after about a minute and reached across the table, taking Sam's free hand in his own. Sam closed his eyes.

"Did something else happen on the stairs?" Dean asked quietly. Sam's hand was limp and cool in his, unresponsive. He wasn't pulling away, but he wasn't doing anything else, either.

"No," Sam replied, opening his eyes and putting his other hand down. He didn't look at Dean. "Of course not."

"Then what's wrong with you?" Dean asked. He struggled not to make it sound like a demand, but it was hard. A lot of the frustration and unease and concern that he was feeling made it into his voice.

"I don't know," Sam admitted after a brief pause, heaving a sigh and shaking his head a little. The movement was so tiny that his shaggy hair didn't even move. His hand twitched in Dean's, and then he pulled it out, hiding both of them away under the table. Dean just stayed where he was, not really sure what to do. "D - " Sam stopped and cleared his throat. He almost looked like he was in pain, for a few seconds. "Dean."

"What?" Dean asked, turning his hands palm-up and shaking his own head.

"Please..." Sam lifted his hands to his face, rubbing hard at it before dragging them up through his hair. "Don't touch me."

Dean stared. Ten seconds went by, then, in a quieter voice, Sam added, "Please."

"Are we back to this?" Dean asked. This time, it was definitely a demand. Even though, inside, he was firmly telling himself not to get pissed. Obviously, he didn't get what was going on here - the whole picture. He wasn't this patient, ever, with anybody but Sam.

"I don't know," Sam repeated miserably. "I just - I feel really weird right now, Dean. Give me time, okay? Just a little? Please?"

Dean licked his lips and shook his head, but he couldn't do much more than that, since their waitress had just showed up with their drinks. Sam ordered after she'd placed his glass of ice water in front of him. They sat in silence as they waited for their food, avoiding each other's eyes; Dean really had no idea what to say, and he guessed Sam was in the same boat.

He didn't get it. He just didn't understand what'd happened today, what had changed, and he couldn't seem to find the words to ask. Dean had thought that they were doing good - great, actually. Making lots of progress in tearing down whatever wall Sam had built up between them. And now they were practically back to square one. Maybe a little better, since at least Sam wasn't screaming and yelling at him here.

Was it something he'd done? Had he screwed up somehow? If he had, he didn't have any idea what it was.

Their food arrived. Dean ate, knowing that he needed calories after the kind of day he'd had, but his movements felt mechanical to him, and the pizza didn't really taste like anything at all.

* * *

It was dark when they got back to the motel, after a car ride that (in Dean's opinion) made certain regions of Antarctica look warm and comfortable. He and Sam hadn't said a word to each other since Sam had asked him to give him time. And Sam had spent the entire ride practically crushed against his side of the car, and he'd flinched every time Dean had moved. Like he thought he was going to try to hit him. Despite the fact that Dean had never, in their entire lives, hurt him intentionally.

He was only getting worse as time went on. Dean was starting to wonder if he'd hit his head back at the apartment; he'd learned how to spot a concussion when he was pretty young, and a change in behavior this drastic was kind of a red flag. But Sam hadn't mentioned getting hit or knocked out, and Dean wasn't sure what kind of reaction he'd get if he suggested going to the hospital to get him checked out.

Dean unlocked the door to the room, holding it open so Sam could go in first. His long-legged gait was practically a shuffle right now, and he had his head bowed and his arms wrapped tightly around himself. He looked...broken. Dean's stomach twisted.

"I'm guessing you don't wanna sleep in the same bed tonight," he said quietly, standing in the open doorway. Sam, having come to a stop over by that bed, slowly shook his head. He was hard to see in the dark room.

"I can't," he muttered. His hair was hanging in his eyes and his head was turned at a weird angle, making it impossible for Dean to really see his face.

"D'you even want me in the room?"

Sam didn't say anything for a few seconds, and Dean, thinking he hadn't heard him, opened his mouth to repeat himself. But then Sam shook his head again. As soon as he was done, he brought his hands up and covered his face with them, squeezing tightly.

"I don't know what's wrong with me," he said, voice muffled. Dean ached with the urge to go over and comfort him, but he couldn't take it if Sam flinched away from his touch. Which, of course, he would.

"We went too fast," Dean replied. That had to be it. Either that or a concussion. "Come get me if you need anything - I'll just be out in the car. And if you're still feeling really weird in the morning..." He coughed. "I think we should make a quick trip to the ER. Have them check you out."

"I'm not sick," Sam told him, dropping his hands. He sounded tired, but Dean thought he could detect a hint of frustration in his voice, too. Maybe even anger.

"Probably not," Dean agreed. "Just to be sure."

"I'm not sick," Sam repeated. His right arm suddenly twitched a little, and he grabbed it, squeezing his wrist so tightly that the knuckles of his left hand went pale in the darkness.

"You're about to fall over," Dean said frankly. Sam's face had been twitching earlier, too, but that was just from being tired. Not from the concussion that he may or may not have. "Get some rest, Sam. I'll see you in the morning, and we can look for a new case."

Dean didn't even want to go in the room to grab a pillow and blanket out of fear that he'd make Sam worse, and Sam didn't offer to bring him one, so he closed the door. There was a blanket under the back seat of the Impala, anyway. As he walked back to the car, he heard the lock slide firmly home on the door, and bit back a sigh. He suddenly felt just as shaky and tired as Sam.

He never should have let him shower with him. He should have made him wait.


	24. Chapter Twenty-Four

Sam had never hated his brother more.

When he was nineteen, after he'd had his talk with their father? No. When he'd showed up in his apartment in the middle of the night? No. Every single time he'd tried to justify their relationship back in the early days of the two of them working together again? Not even. None of those times so much as came close to what he was feeling right now.

The irony of  _why_  he was hating Dean so passionately at the moment wasn't lost on him. All the other times, it was just because he kept getting too close to him. He wouldn't give him enough space, he had some sort of pathological need to push and press Sam about the tiniest changes in his behavior. And, now, Sam was pissed at him for doing exactly the opposite. He would've laughed, if he'd been able to control his mouth.

All day, all freaking day, ever since Lucy had forced herself down his throat and shoved him out of the driver's seat, Sam had been screaming at the top of lungs that weren't his anymore and caroming off the boundaries of his body in fury. Throwing every ounce of willpower in his soul (and there was a lot of it) into trying to break through and make Dean realize that something was wrong. He literally wasn't himself. And, just through thrashing around like an electrocuted octopus and tirelessly battering away at Lucy's defenses, he was able to seize control of a few muscles, for a few seconds at a time, every few hours He gave himself facial tics, jerked his arm, tried to move his hands.

Dean didn't notice. Or, if he did, he didn't comment on it, and Sam despised him for that.

From interviewing the very few demonic possession victims they'd come across when he was younger, Sam knew that most demons preferred to just put the minds of their vessels to sleep. It was easier not to have to constantly grapple with a human soul while also driving a body, and the fact that the vessel wasn't aware of what was happening and didn't remember it was an unintended side effect. But Lucy was clearly willing to put up with the grappling, because she'd left Sam awake. He could use his eyes and ears whenever he wanted to. Which meant that he was fully aware of what she was using him for.

He guessed that, so far, it really wasn't that bad. She hadn't killed Dean, after all, or anybody else. She was just pushing him fiercely away, which Sam could admit he'd been doing on his own for years. It was the sheer injustice of not being able to control himself that had Sam wanting her back in Hell - that, and the hurt and confusion that he could see on Dean's face and hear in his voice every time Lucy flinched away from his touch. He probably thought Sam was afraid of him, for some reason. Disgusted by him, despite the fact that they'd been doing so much better. That very fact was why it was cutting Sam so deep. But he couldn't do a damn thing if Dean didn't  _notice._

And now he'd have to wait until tomorrow to try and get his attention again, because Lucy had sent him out of the motel room that they should have been sharing and locked the door behind him. Sam gave up for the night. He hadn't known that souls could get tired, but he was exhausted. He knew it wasn't physical; he wasn't tuned in at all to what his body was feeling right now.

Speaking of which, he wondered if Lucy was going to let him sleep. She'd fed him (or his body, he guessed) earlier, but he got the feeling that that had just been to keep up appearances around Dean. Sam wouldn't put it past her to run him so ragged that her energy was the only thing keeping him walking and talking.

If that was her plan, then there was nothing he could do about it now. So he retreated. When Lucy had made herself comfortable inside of him, she'd popped him out of place. Left him loose inside of his body, unable to leave it or command any part of it without massive effort. He concentrated himself behind his face, in his arm...in other places, when he was trying to move them. Now, he drifted down to the core of his body, somewhere with the steady pounding of his heart overhead. Or the spiritual approximation of his head.

It was dark, and he floated numbly in it. He wasn't sure that he'd be able to see even if there were lights inside him, since he didn't have eyes. But, then again, ghosts were just souls without bodies, and they could see, so -

_Sam_.

He was shaken out of his idle thoughts by a voice he recognized. He immediately tensed up - gathered himself together. Whatever. Not having a real form was going to drive him crazy.

_Saa-aam..._

_Stay the hell away from me_ , Sam spat, withdrawing further into his body. He was probably down in his intestines now, which he knew would disgust him if he thought about it too much, but maybe Lucy wouldn't be able to reach him here.

_I just want to have a word with you_. The demon actually had the stones to sound  _hurt_. Sam, immaterial and driven into his own bowels, seethed.

_Y'know, I think you've done enough,_ he said. Thought. He wasn't speaking with a mouth.  _Just leave me alone._

_It isn't like you've left_ me  _alone,_  Lucy pointed out. Sam didn't dignify that with a response.  _Come on, Sammy. Come up here. Let's talk._

Sam was about to dive even deeper (maybe he could get some peace and quiet if he holed up in one of his feet), but he stopped when the darkness around him suddenly  _pulsed_. He couldn't explain how he could see, pretty much, the absence of sight move, but he did, and it made him realize something: the demon was in every nook and cranny of him, filling him up. No matter how small of a space he crammed himself into, she'd be all around him. He couldn't get away.

As if to hammer that point home, something wrapped tightly around him. He assumed that it was a tendril of oily black demon-smoke, because the touch of it sent shockwaves of primal revulsion through his soul. It felt like violation incarnate. Pain and hate condensed. The cycle of abuse personified. He would have vomited, if he'd still been hooked into all his systems, and probably passed out and started crying at the same time. He was getting a naked glance into the very essence of a demon, and what he was seeing was really making him wonder just what these things were, and where they had come from.

The tendril pulled him, struggling, up out of the depths of his body. Past his heart and lungs, around his hyoid bone, into his skull. Then its horrifying touch was gone, and he could see, even though he wasn't looking out of his eyes. Sam blinked. He was in a blank white space, with no visible walls or floor or source of light. He looked down, and saw jeans and Nikes. He had his body back - sort of.

"Your mind is an incredible place."

So far, Lucy's true voice had only reached Sam mentally, so actually hearing it was kind of a shock. But it was nothing compared to the shock he got when he turned to face the source of the voice.

All Sam had ever seen demons as was clouds of black material halfway between a gas and a liquid. But now that one was inside of him, rubbing up against his bare soul like an overly affectionate cat, he could see its...her...real face. Obviously. Standing a little over ten feet away from him was an emaciated corpse. Its flesh was bleached almost white, except for the areas that had been burned. Bloodless wounds covered it from head to toe. Bites, scratches, tears, stab wounds, gashes, cuts, places where the skin had been peeled away. Black smoke, constantly moving, poured out of them. The smoke coming out of the injuries on its head formed the vague shapes of a pair of short horns, curving back over its skull. The eyes, overlarge in the starved face, were black as oil. It was naked, but so torn up that the only thing that let Sam know it was female was the small set of withered, scarred breasts on its chest.

The demon smiled, exposing teeth that looked like they'd been broken and filed into rough fangs, then spoke in the voice that Sam had heard before. He caught sight of a mangled tongue, but it didn't seem to affect her ability to talk.

"This is what Hell does," Lucy said pleasantly. "What it makes. And you and your lover - sorry,  _brother_  - tried to send me back there."

Sam gaped. He'd seen a lot of horrible things - a  _lot_. You didn't hunt monsters from a young age without getting at least a few sickening images burned into your brain forever. But this was inside his brain already, and besides. It'd already been a tough day. He wasn't very well-equipped to handle this at the moment.

"I've gotten pretty used to staring," Lucy told him. "Mostly from ghosts. But it's still rude." She moved. Just based on how bad she looked, she shouldn't have been able to, but she did. She walked towards Sam with a shuffling, painful gait. "Maybe we can take a peek at what  _your_  soul really looks like. Later, though. We've got all the time in the world."

That set off a wave of overwhelming foreboding in Sam. He instinctively backed up as Lucy approached him, not wanting her to get too close. He remembered how it had felt when she'd touched him.

"Go away," he commanded, not expecting her to obey. "I don't wanna talk to you."

Lucy clucked disapprovingly. "I'm trying to compliment you. I hope you weren't this ungrateful whenever your brother told you how nice and tight your little ass was."

"Stay away from me," Sam said, not rising to the bait. He couldn't remember Dean ever saying anything like that to him, though. Their pillow talk had always been gentle and loving.

"As I was saying earlier," Lucy said, sounding impatient, "your mind is an incredible place." She stopped trying to get too close to him, and Sam stopped backing up. There was about five feet of distance between them now. "It's a real treat to be in here. I hope you know you're a genius? You couldn't be any smarter without getting rid of something to make more room. Like your overgrown emotions." She tipped her head to the side and smiled again. "You definitely aren't a psychopath."

"Thanks," Sam said sarcastically, struggling to keep those very same "overgrown emotions" in check. "That's a huge relief."

"You've got a lot of talents," Lucy continued, as if he hadn't said a word. "You're excellent with language, and logic. You could've been a writer or a teacher. You're not as good at math, but you still got an A in Calculus. Of course, some of those talents of yours are a double-edged sword, aren't they? Like the photographic memory."

Sam turned his back on Lucy without saying anything and started walking. He wasn't interesting in listening to her, even if all she was going to do was sing his praises, and there had to be a way out of this place.

"There's a lot of space in your head," Lucy said, and Sam flinched, because it sounded like she was talking right into his ears. "Room for all your complicated thoughts, I'm guessing, but there's still plenty of gray matter left over for me to make this little bubble for us to talk in. And lots of other stuff, too."

Sam swallowed, but kept walking at the same even pace. This was  _his_  mind, and he could make it out of here without giving the demon behind him the satisfaction of seeing him lose it.

"Your guilt complex," Lucy continued placidly. "Your post-traumatic stress disorder. Your crippling anxiety. Your twisted core concept of family, your sexual insecurities, your sick desperation to be normal. So...you know. Everything your older brother raped into you."

Sam gritted his teeth, but something slipped out past them. "He never raped me."

"Oh, really?" Lucy cooed. "Well, we're going to have a long chat about that, and we'll see how you feel at the end of it." One second, Sam was heading into an endless white void. The next, the grinning demon was right in front of him, blocking his way, her smoke curling around her like flames. "I'm going to cast everything in an  _entirely_ new light, Sammy."

Sam had a split second to realize that he'd reached the (very frayed) end of his rope, and then something uncontrollable welled up in him. He turned on the heel of one of his sneakers and ran in the opposite direction. He knew he was fast, and could keep it up for a while - courtesy of his long legs, lean build, and well-developed muscles. A classmate at Stanford had once approvingly told him that he'd kill it on the track team, but he'd never had the time to try out.

"You're running," Lucy noted, not sounding particularly amused by it. "How original. It's not like it's what you've been doing for your whole life or anything."

_"Leave me alone!"_  Sam shouted, furious and worn out. Not to mention frustrated, since, with no landmarks, he might as well have been running in place.

"Simmer down!" Lucy scolded. "Usually, you'd have to shell out more than a thousand bucks for this kind of analysis. I'm doing you a favor, telling you that you ran from the monsters your daddy hunted. From his disapproval. From your brother. From a normal life with that blonde slut you latched onto, because you knew you couldn't hack it in the long term, because of what you're still running from even now. Want to know what that is?"

"Shut up!" Sam fell to his knees. Maybe there was another way out. "Shut - the fuck -  _up_!" He dug his fingertips into whatever it was he was kneeling on, and it almost immediately vanished. Then he was falling, into blackness he hadn't been able to see before. He choked back a reflexive scream. This wouldn't kill him, and Lucy was enjoying herself way too much as it was.

_It's the knowledge that there's something fundamentally wrong with you, Sam,_ Lucy whispered.  _Something on a level so deep the only way you could fix it is by killing yourself._

And then he was back in the whiteness, shuddering on his hands and knees, staring at a pair of bare, pale feet, criss-crossed with wounds.

"But you're too weak for that, aren't you?" Lucy asked, unmistakable relish in her voice. "You don't have the strength to deprive your brother of his fuck-toy. This disease in your soul's stolen all of it."

Lucy gingerly lowered herself to her bony knees, then put the tips of two of her smoke tendrils under Sam's jaw. His shuddering became violent at the sickening touch, and he had no hope of stopping it. She tilted his head back until he was forced to stare into her black eyes. He tried to shut his eyelids, but...they were apparently gone right now.

"But I'm going to  _cure_  you, you sick, pathetic little whore," Lucy told him, her voice almost tender as she stroked Sam's hair with a third tendril. "Take away this festering love you have for your rapist. I can get rid of that, at least. There is so much more making you a freak."

Sam regained control of himself and pulled away from the toxic contact, shaking his head even as he lowered it. He crawled unsteadily backward, hoping Lucy's reach didn't extend this far.

"Like I'd want any help you could offer," Sam said quietly, pushing himself up onto his knees and hugging himself with both arms. The demon began to laugh, the sound painfully loud.

"You have no idea how fucked up you are, do you?" she asked gleefully. "There's something inside of you, something neither you nor your brother put there. You're  _marked_. I sure hope I don't get in trouble, taking you for a spin like this...but it isn't like I'm planning on killing you. In fact, they might find you easier to work with, once I'm done. They certainly won't have to worry about your brother."

Despite himself, Sam looked up at Lucy, who was standing again. The comment about Dean bothered him deeply, but he could already guess what her plan for him was: kill him or drive him away. Both of which Sam would do everything in his power to prevent. So he didn't ask about that.

"Who'll find me easier to work with?" he asked. "What are you talking about?"

"From the looks of what I stumbled on," Lucy replied, "you'll find out in another year or two. I'm not going to spoil the surprise. Not when there are so many other fun things around here." She smiled, then glanced upward. "For example...what's this?"

As far as Sam could tell, Lucy didn't actually do anything, but something happened anyway. The furious, disgusted voice of his father suddenly boomed at him, coming from just about everywhere. Sam hugged himself more tightly and squeezed his eyes shut (his lids were back), intent on weathering the storm.

"What the  _hell_  have you gotten yourself into now?" John Winchester demanded angrily. "First this...travesty that you've got going on with your brother, and now you're possessed. You're a hunter. You  _were_ , at least, before you wimped out. You should know how to fight one of these things off."

Sam knew it wasn't real - it might even just be Lucy this time, tapping into his memories and using them to talk with his dad's voice and mannerisms. But almost twenty years' worth of conditioning, both intentional and not, had him adrift in shame and guilt. An apology jumped automatically to his tongue, and he just barely bit it back.

"Did taking Dean up your ass make you so loose that anything can slip into you now?" John asked. Sam could hear the barely-contained rage seething just below the surface of his father's voice, and it terrified him. "I hope this demon kills both of you. Takes Dean out first, makes you watch, then runs you down to nothing. It'd sure make things easier for me; I don't need a pair of freaks who spend every other night screwing each other stupid for sons. Why d'you think I finally got rid of Dean?"

Sam had wanted to remain silent and stoic. He'd thought that he could just wait Lucy out, until she got bored with torturing him for the moment and locked this...facet of his psychosis or whatever it was away again. But he was much weaker than he'd thought, an he couldn't take any more. He clapped his hands over his ears as a pathetic whimper leaked out of him.

"Don't you dare try to block me out, boy." Huge hands, rough with calluses and scars, wrapped around Sam's wrists and yanked his palms away. He cried out as way too much pressure was put on the slender bones. "And  _look_  at me when I'm talking to you!"

The hands vanished from Sam's wrists. He didn't get so much as a second of relief, though, because one of them almost immediately buried itself in his shaggy hair and twisted his head so viciously that, if this had been his body, his neck would have broken. Unable to keep himself from shaking, Sam stared up into his father's face, which was currently twisted and flushed with fury.

"S-s-sorry, s-sir," he stuttered out of habit.

"It's just a little late for that, don't you think?" His father pulled on his hair, hauling him upwards by about a foot, and Sam cried out again. He was off his knees, but he didn't have enough room to get his feet under him, so he was hanging from his father's hand. Scalp burning and stinging with agony. "You make me sick, and there's nothing you can do to change that."

He let go of his hair, which Sam would have welcomed if he hadn't thrown him. The "ground," which had been so insubstantial before, felt like reinforced concrete now, and Sam grunted in pain as he bounced across the blinding whiteness and picked up dozens of deep bruises. He was amazed and a little proud that he managed not to scream.

"D'you want me to tell you why, Sam?" His father's bootsteps sounded like gunshots, aimed at him.

"I kn-know why," Sam said shakily. He'd landed on his stomach and started to struggle up onto all fours, intent on getting to his feet and trying to escape. A brutal kick to his ribs, though, sent him flopping back to the ground with an agonized wheeze.

"Don't talk back to me!" John snarled. "That was a lesson you never could learn, wasn't it?" He kicked him again, this time in the stomach. Sam heaved, eyes watering. "Even when I was trying to talk some sense into you about letting your big brother do you bareback, you were defending what you two had. Just thinking about it makes me wanna throw up." He planted a foot on Sam's lower back and shifted his weight to it, digging the sharp heel of his boot into his kidney. "I must've gotten through to you, though. Since, eventually, you did the right thing...I guess, even if you did take the coward's way out. You left Dean far behind and tried to forget about what you'd let him do to you. Realized it was wrong."

Sam, breathing hard, took advantage of the brief respite to cover his head with his arms. He doubted it'd do much good, but at least it made him feel a little better.

"And then you threw it all away and ran right back into his arms!" John's next kick caught him in the face. It probably should have broken his jaw, but he just got the pain.

"Dean," Sam croaked without thinking, wanting out, wanting help. His brother was the first source of protection and comfort that came to mind.

"Cry for him all you want! He's not coming!" Another kick, again in the stomach. "He could've gone after you, but I told him not to, and he stayed. He won't go up against me just to save his cockwarmer - I'm sure he can find a replacement. Some other kid who reminds him of you. Or maybe he doesn't even care that much."

John's blows were growing harder, more frenzied, and Sam was crying in earnest now, begging for his brother to come and save him even though he knew he couldn't hear him in here. His father's voice was louder than ever, and angrier, and with a jolt of fear, Sam realized he wanted to kill him. He hated him and what he'd done that much.

"D'you have any idea how disgusting you are?!" John yelled. "You're even worse than your brother! He's a pervert, a deviant, so he's almost got an excuse. But you just whored yourself out to him because you thought it'd make him  _love_  you. How does it make you feel, to know that you brought this sickness upon yourself for no good reason?!"

Sam tried to curl up into a ball to afford himself a little more protection, but something stopped him. It was like he was strapped down.

He knew this was wrong. His father had never beat him like this, not even when he'd found out what he and Dean had been doing behind his back for years. There'd been the occasional swat or cuff, and Sam had received spankings up until he was eight or nine, but nothing like this had ever happened before. It didn't really matter, though. This wasn't actually his dad.

"This is for your own good!" John was shouting. "By the time I'm done with you, you'll be - "

His voice suddenly cut off. Sam, wishing he could lose consciousness in this form, waited for the next kick to plow into him, but it never came. A few aching minutes passed before he worked up the courage to take his arms off of his head and peek hesitantly upwards. He expected another boot to the face, but his father wasn't standing over him anymore. He'd been replaced by Lucy, who smiled down at him.

"Aren't you the little masochist," she said sweetly. "I'll go ahead and put this thing that you made to punish yourself back in its cage, so you can get some rest. You're going to need it for tomorrow; I've got big plans."

Sam didn't answer. Lucy didn't seem to expect him to, though, because she vanished, and the white bubble dissolved around him a moment later. As soon as he was able to, he fled. He bolted down, as deep as he could go, and packed all of himself into what was probably one of his toes. His bruised, battered soul was hard to manipulate, but he managed. He prayed that none of Lucy's smoke would touch him as he waited, with dread, for morning to come.


	25. Chapter Twenty-five

Dean still considered himself a young man. After all, he was only twenty-six. Sure, maybe he had the psyche of an eighty-year-old career soldier - he'd seen enough horrible things to keep him well-supplied with nightmares for ten lifetimes. And maybe he was riddled with dozens of injuries, both old and new, that he'd never be able to tell any doctor the truth about. But he wasn't losing his vision, his hair wasn't going gray, and he still manufactured all the hormones he needed to get it up without any help.

That said, even a twenty-six-year-old back couldn't quite make it unscathed through a night spent in the back seat of the Impala.

Dean groaned loudly as he grabbed the top of the front seat and used it to haul himself into a sitting position. His spine popped and his muscles spasmed, and his stomach sank right into his ankles at the idea of driving all day when he was already in this much pain. The thought of asking Sam to take the wheel briefly crossed his mind, but he rejected it, and not just because of his pride or how protective of the car he happened to be. Sam wouldn't want the distraction of driving; he'd probably prefer to focus entirely on staying as far away from Dean as he could. Remembering how his younger brother had been acting since yesterday's ghost hunt almost hurt more than Dean's back.

"Aw, Jesus," he grunted, pushing the door open with one booted foot. He gingerly scooted out after tossing the blanket he'd used last night aside, feeling like he was at least twice his actual age. When he straightened up completely, he had to slam a fist into the glossy black body of the Impala to keep himself from yelling. " _Shit_. Goddammit. Oh, man, is that gonna smart later."

Dean shook his legs out, grimacing when his knees crackled like green logs in a fire. He wasn't as tall as Sam, but he was still big enough to have had to keep his knees bent all night. He hadn't had to do that, back before he'd hit his second growth spurt. Both he and Sam could fit back there comfortably with a blanket, a flashlight, and a thermos of coffee. Maybe a bottle of lube, too, if they were both feeling it. God, did he wish he could go back to those days.

Now Dean shook his head, ignoring the fiery pain in his neck, and swallowed down the wave of longing that threatened to drag him under. He couldn't afford to get lost in nostalgia; it was hard, but he had to stay focused on right here and right now. He'd learned, when Sam left two years ago without even saying goodbye, that that was how you survived.

Maybe he wouldn't even have to drive today. That popped into Dean's head as he forced his thoughts away from how things had used to be with Sam, and he latched onto it. They hadn't even looked for a new case yesterday, so unless Sam had spent all night trawling through news sites on his laptop, they didn't have one. That would be kind of nice.

Whether Dean was going to have to get behind the wheel or not, though, he badly needed a shower. Hot water worked miracles when it came to soothing sore muscles. Stiff-legged and aching, Dean walked around the car and made his way up to the door of the motel room. He raised a hand to knock, really hoping that Sam would just let him in without too much fuss, but he didn't have to.

The door swung open, and Sam stepped out. Actually, he edged around Dean, pressing himself against the wall in an effort to keep from touching him - and maybe to keep himself out of arm's reach, too. Annoyed, Dean almost said something, but the way that Sam aimed his eyes firmly away from him, like he wanted to avoid a conversation at all costs, made him keep his mouth shut. It made him feel a little guilty, too.

Just what the hell had he done to make Sam withdraw like this? He didn't know, but he felt bad anyway.

"I found us another case," Sam mumbled, still not looking at Dean. Dean noticed that he was showered, shaved, and dressed in fresh clothes. He must've gotten up pretty early to do all that plus hunt for a new monster to...hunt. God, Dean was tired. "Lamona, Washington. We've got a long drive ahead of us. I'll go grab us some breakfast, and you go ahead and get ready."

Then he was gone, walking down the sidewalk and out of earshot before Dean could even open his mouth, much less ask him for any details about this new case that he'd dug up. He bit back a sigh, still determined to stay positive and focus on the present, and walked into the room. Sam had made the bed and packed all his things up. Dean's stuff, on the other hand, had been shoved messily into a corner. Like he'd been afraid it would crawl up onto the mattress while he was sleeping. Dean would've assumed that it'd been done to piss him off and gotten angry about it, but the gesture didn't say "spite" to him. It was clear that, whatever was wrong with Sam, it'd gotten a lot worse during the night.

Why, though? Why was Sam so weird around him all of a sudden that he couldn't even handle looking at his dirty underwear?

Dean firmly shoved that painful question off into oblivion and knelt down to fish his all-in-one and some clean(ish) clothes out of the pile. With those in hand, he walked into the bathroom, which was still a little damp and steamy from Sam's shower. Before he could stop himself, Dean closed his eyes and took a deep whiff, flooding his lungs with the scents of his little brother's shampoo and conditioner and body wash and shaving cream and cologne and toothpaste and...

He forced himself to stop. He couldn't do this, he had to focus on something else. Which he was usually pretty good at doing when something was hurting or making him uncomfortable, so as he stripped down and stepped into the tiny, mildew-slimed stall, it didn't take him very long to forget about it. What he couldn't seem to forget about, though, was how Sam was acting.

It hadn't even been that long since his behavior had done a complete one-eighty. Dean hadn't looked at a clock yet this morning, so he couldn't be sure, but he didn't think that it had been a full twenty-four hours. Weird, then, that it felt like so much longer. With all the little pieces of Dean that had been frayed and torn off by Sam's shying away and avoiding his eyes, this might as well have been going on for weeks. If it actually did stretch out to weeks...Jesus, Dean wasn't even sure how he'd survive.

He turned on the water and pivoted so that his back was to it, closing his eyes and letting himself get lost in the simple luxury of water so hot he was sure it was turning his skin pink. It felt good against his aching, abused muscles. Cold beer on a hot day good. Classic rock station with crystal-clear reception good. Falling into bed next to Sam after a long hunt good.

Dean blew out a hard breath, annoyed with himself, and raised an arm in order to put his hand against the tile wall that he was facing and lean on it. The mildew in the grout felt unpleasantly soft and wet against his calluses. He didn't bother opening his eyes, but he did grimace - not because of the mildew, though. Moving his arm had aggravated one of the many muscles in his shoulder that he'd kinked up, sleeping in the back of the Impala. Where he'd used to fit but definitely didn't, these days. Where he and Sam had passed so very many long hours together.

Dean debated with himself for, maybe, half a second before he decided to hell with it. Even if it wound up hurting him, he deserved a little nostalgia right now.

* * *

Late July, 1997

* * *

"I don't think he's coming back anytime soon," Sam said, peering through the windshield at the dull lights of the bar.

"He said he would, didn't he?" Dean replied, arms folded across his chest and eyes fixed on the building's entrance. So he wouldn't miss their dad when he cam back out - which should really be any minute now. It was getting close to midnight. "Just as soon as he's done asking people about that thing that's been messing with the church."

Sam, kneeling in the passenger seat with his hands planted on the dash, turned and gave Dean a look that he could just barely make out in the weak light. It threw weird shadows in the car, where they were parked out on the very edge of the lot, and Sam had had to use a flashlight to read the books he'd gotten from the local Goodwill a few days ago. He'd put it away a little while ago, though, in favor of watching the bar with Dean. Who'd been doing it ever since Dad went it. Dean wouldn't ever say it out loud, out of a deep-seated loyalty to him and an increasingly-useless need to protect Sam, but both of them knew that Dad hadn't been interviewing witnesses for a few hours now. If he'd ever even started.

"He's not coming back," Sam repeated, looking back to the bar.

"Well, let's give him another..." Dean lifted his arm and squinted at the watch on his wrist (a present from Sam for his eighteenth birthday - it was cheap, but worked better than any he'd ever had before), struggling to make out the numbers. "...twenty minutes."

"Five," Sam said, an edge in his voice that Dean had been trying to get used to for the past few months. He'd complained about Dad for years now, but only ever to Dean or, rarely, the friends that he made once in a blue moon. Ever since he hit high school, though, he'd been challenging him to his face. Picking fights over everything. It was like something inside him had shifted.

"Fifteen," Dean countered. It made him feel sick and weird, when he had to be between them. Whose side was he supposed to take?

"Ten."

"Fine. We'll give him another ten minutes." Dean settled back into the driver's seat, satisfied with the compromise.

"When he doesn't come back out in ten minutes..." _When._ Not _if_. "...are we gonna go back to the room?"

"What? No." Dean looked at Sam, surprised, and hoped he knew what was wrong about what he'd just said. If he didn't, though, he was gonna tell him. "We can't just drive off and _leave_ Dad."

"He left us," Sam pointed out. Dean noticed that his hands were curled into fists on the plastic of the dashboard.

"C'mon," Dean replied, shifting so that he was talking directly to his little brother. "You know why. This place ain't like our usual one - it's more...upscale. They card." And Dad had said they wouldn't buy Dean's fake one, might even call the cops on him, which sucked, because he could really go for a beer right now. OR something stronger.

"Maybe," Sam responded in a weird, flat voice. "And maybe he just wanted to ditch us 'cause he's in there getting drunk."

"Hey," Dean admonished. Even though the chances were better than decent that that was exactly what he was doing. "You don't know that."

"I don't," Sam agreed, and now Dean could tell that he was mad. "Maybe he met someone and they snuck out the back and we don't even know where the hell he is."

Dean didn't know where this had come from, but he thought that he just might know how to defuse it. HE sighed deeply and rubbed a callused hand across his face. It caught on his stubble, which was just barely starting to fill out to something approaching acceptable thickness - about damn time, since he was old enough to vote now. If he'd been registered to vote.

"Hey," he repeated, and waited until Sam looked at him before he kept talking. His face was hard and angry, but he was still too young to know how to hide the hurt that was fueling it all. Maybe he'd never learn how to hide it from Dean. "Yeah. You're right. Dad ran off and left us - again." It couldn't be betraying Dad to say that. After all, it was the truth. "But you've still got me, doncha?"

Sam held firm for about a second. Then he sucked in a hard breath through his nose that sounded a lot like a sniffle, and slid across the seat until he was leaning up against Dean. Dean put an arm around him and stroked the curling ends of his hair with his thumb. It was getting long again; Dad didn't like that. He'd wanna cut it again soon.

"Yeah," Sam mumbled. "You're still here." He was quiet for a while. The car smelled like leather and booze and Dean's cologne, which, for some reason, Sam had been practically taking baths in lately - like Dean wouldn't notice. "If we're not gonna go back to the room without him, what's the point in waiting up?"

Dean sighed through his nose. As usual, Sam was smarter than him. "Yeah, okay. Better bunk down for the night. Go ahead and get in the back."

Sam immediately scrambled over the seat and started rooting around for the blankets and things that they had stashed back there. Dean wanted badly to lie down, all of a sudden painfully aware of just how tired he was, but he waited. Sure enough, the sounds of Sam making himself a bed stopped after a minute and he asked, "Aren't you coming?"

Dean bit back a groan, back and neck already aching. And heart already going wobbly in his chest, something it didn't do for anyone but Sam. "Sure thing, Sammy."

(It was around this time that twenty-six-year-old Dean realized that this memory didn't exactly fit the bill, since he'd already done almost all his growing by eighteen and was too long to lay comfortably in the back seat of the Impala. Screw it, though. This memory was a good one, too, and he was already about halfway into it, so he might as well roll the tape.)

He turned and hooked his arms over the bench seat, about to heave himself into the back of the car, but he stopped when Sam commanded, "Boots off." He didn't like sleeping on gravel or little bits of dirt, and Dean couldn't exactly blame him for that, so he complied. He climbed into the back seat in just his socks, the motion making the Impala rock faintly on its shocks, and found that Sam had built one of his standard little nests on top of the leather. Soft, warm blankets, and lots of them. Dean would be sleeping on his side to make sure that neither of them rolled onto the floor during the night. As per usual.

Sam pressed himself out of the way as Dean settled down into the mess of blankets, then crawled on top of him. Dean grunted as Sam's weight pressed down on his chest and a knobby knee dug into his stomach.

"Think you might be getting a little too big to do this," he muttered. It was much more comfortable when Sam laid down and spread his weight out, though, so they were chest-to-chest. His sharp edges weren't quite so evident this way.

"Don't be a baby," Sam replied, laying his head on the place where Dean's collarbones joined together. A little while later, after Dean had put an arm over him, he asked, "D'you ever think about running away?"

"No," Dean responded. He didn't have to consider it at all. But something inside of him was tight and sour, almost acidic, as he asked Sam, "Why? Do you?"

"Not really," Sam replied, with a defeated little sigh that made Dean feel immediately, guiltily better. "Not without you, at least."

And Dean's "better' was gone just as quickly as it had come. He folded the arm that he didn't have over Sam up behind his head, so that he could look down at him. Or down at where he thought he was, at least, judging by the feel of him and the sounds of his breathing. The darkness was much more complete back here than it had been in the front seat.

"Sam..." Dean began slowly, realizing that he should've asked this a long time ago. "Aren't you happy?"

Sam squirmed on top of him, soft little movements. Dean felt him take fistfuls of his T-shirt and clench them. He sounded grudging when he admitted, "Yeah. I am. I'm really happy, actually, almost all the time."

He'd been talking into the skin of Dean's throat and shoulder, getting it hot and wet with his breath, but now he lifted his head. If Dean squinted, he could make out the shine of his eyes, the movement of his mouth. "'Cause of you. I think."

After over a decade of hearing all kinds of sappy things from Sam, Dean probably should've been over it. But there was still something about it that could really touch him, and this time was no exception. He thought it might even be more meaningful now that Sam was older and almost had to force it past his embarrassment and everything - instead of just blurting it out with total, innocent honesty, like he had when he was little.

Sam was moving to kiss him, and Dean met him halfway. He tasted like the cheap, greasy dinner they'd scooped up earlier, before Dad had brought them out to this bar. Or, more accurately, the parking lot of this bar, since that was where he'd left them. Dean didn't mind the taste in the slightest, though. Underneath it, he could still detect the warm, wet, natural flavor of his younger brother.

It started out innocent enough: just a few slow kisses, something that they could've broken off in a second without either of them being too disappointed if Dad had suddenly come back. But Dad stayed in the bar, or wherever it was he'd drifted off to (Sam was right; he really could be anywhere by now), so it got more and more heated as time passed. They started touching each other, grabbing and stroking, and Dean didn't make any move to stop Sam as his hands wandered south. Just reciprocated, thinking about the bottle of lube that he'd stashed so far back under the seat he almost couldn't reach it. So far back that Dad would never be able to find it - not that Dean thought he'd ever look for it.

He had to go spelunking for the lube a few minutes later, when Sam shucked himself out of his jeans and boxers with a fluid movement of his hips and hands and started frantically dry-humping Dean, his little cock so hard it felt like a piece of iron against Dean's lower stomach. He grabbed Sam's shoulders and moved him to the side (prompting an annoyed, needy mewl) so that he could get down on the floor and stick an arm under the seat.

"Hurry _up_ ," Sam hissed impatiently. He'd taken his shirt off and was crouched, cat-like, down among his blankets, a skinny little ghost in the darkness that Dean had just barely adjusted to. Dean's fingers finally closed around the lube bottle, and he straightened up with it in his hand, chuckling.

"You little nympho," he accused affectionately, pressing a kiss to Sam's forehead. He got more hair against his lips than skin. "Be patient. You do _not_ want me to go in dry."

Dean pulled his own clothes off before climbing back up onto the seat. Sam immediately pressed himself against him, hips moving in a steady rhythm and wetness leaking out of his dick. Dean wrapped a hand around it and stroked, thumbing the head. Sam moaned in response, a low, reverent sound. Sacred. If anybody but Dean ever heard that, it'd be ruined. Tainted. And he wasn't even sure that he was worthy, sometimes.

When Sam twitched against his palm, Dean knew it was time to take his hand away. He squeezed a generous blob of lube into it and held that instead, waiting for it to warm up as he _snap_ ped the lid of the bottle closed and dropped it to the floor. Sam groaned in frustration.

"Jerk," he growled, shoving one of Dean's hips. Dean laughed again - partly because Sam's attack hadn't budged him so much as an inch.

"I told you to be patient," he reminded him. "D'you wanna make love with me or not?" He never referred to what they did as "fucking." Not if he could help it.

To his credit, Sam waited silently after that - though, of course, he was practically buzzing with impatience the whole time. Dean was sympathetic (and impressed that he didn't even try to touch himself); he'd been a horny fourteen-year-old once, too. So he did his best to hurry.

The lube got pretty runny when it was warm. When Dean used it slick up his cock, it drooled down onto his sac in thin rivers. With a gesture from him, Sam laid back and opened his legs, exposing his hole. Which Dean couldn't even see in the dimness, but could definitely feel. As Dean prepared it, he noticed that Sam was already relatively loose. Ready to take him. Ever since the first few times they'd had sex, that had happened every time he popped a stiffy: his body knew what to expect and was gearing itself up.

Sam moved when he was finished, and Dean laid down on his back, stretching himself out as far as he could. That, of course, meant pressing his bare feet up against the cool glass of one of the windows. Sam straddled his slightly-raised thighs, kneeling, and Dean grabbed his hips and walked him forward. When he reached his cock, jutting proudly up and away from his body, Sam lifted himself up, pressed his twitching hole against the head of it, and lowered his body. He let gravity pull him down, going as slow as syrup being pulled out of a bottle. A groan rumbled out of Dean as steadily, inch by inch, the hot, tight wetness of his baby brother's ass encased him.

Sam let out an answering moan, a high, thin sound of pure pleasure. His long eyelashes caught what little light there was, and Dean watched them flutter as his lids slid closed. It felt like forever before he bottomed out. When he did, he leaned forward, grunting softly (Dean could feel his cock inside of him, nudging insistently at his prostate because of the movement), and put his hands on Dean's chest for balance. His hair hung in his face, swaying as he panted. Dean brushed it out of the way and tucked it behind his ears in dark, soft curls.

They'd only used this position a few times before, and always when they were in the car. Sex in the cramped bag seat wasn't all that conducive to their usual missionary, or even the doggy-style that they tried out oh-so-rarely because Sam had heard about it at school once and was too damn curious for his own good. The first time they'd tried it, Sam had fallen off halfway through. The second time, Dean had accidentally bucked up and made Sam hit his head on the ceiling. But they were getting the hang of it now.

"Ride me," Dean instructed, voice low and gravelly with arousal. It scratched at his throat.

"'Nother minute," Sam gasped out. Last time, he'd admitted that he still wasn't used to being filled from this angle. It took some time to adjust, apparently.

"I've got you." Dean lifted Sam's hands up off his chest with both of his own and held them, palm-to-palm. He laced their fingers together in a firm bounce and raised their hands to a good height. "Hold onto me, and ride me. I'm not gonna let you fall."

This time, Sam obeyed. Using Dean's hands as leverage and an anchor point, he lifted himself up a few inches with his arms and thighs, then sank back down. Then he repeated it. Dean groaned out encouragement as real pleasure, deep and hot, started coursing through him. No matter how many times they did this, it never failed to blow his mind, how good it felt.

Sam's pace was excruciatingly slow at first, but Dean guessed that that was okay. The feel of him was still overwhelming, and if he'd just gone to town right away, Dean suspected that he would've shot his load within a few seconds. He didn't want to do that; he wanted it to last. They both needed it to last. So when Sam started going faster, Dean was ready for it - but that didn't stop him from moaning again.

He didn't have to worry about finishing too fast now. It felt like forever as Sam frantically rocked on top of him, tongue lolling out with his shallow breaths and eyes tightly shut. Letting him have this much control meant that he could move in the way that would give him the most pleasure. Dean's cock ground against his prostate every time he lifted up and dropped, every single time, which was a much better rate than Dean got when he was thrusting on his own. His arms were starting to get tired, since Sam was using them to haul almost all of his weight up every couple of seconds, but he didn't say a word to complain.

Sam's movements got jerky and frantic when he was about to come. But even if he'd been on his back, Dean knew all of his other tells: his breathing speeding up, biting his lower lip, squeezing whatever he was holding onto (or whatever his hands happened to be closest to) as hard as he could. Dean clearly felt his heart beat only once before Sam lost it, throwing his head back with a high-pitched cry. Come popped out of him in hot, white little spurts, landing on Dean's stomach and mixing with the sweat that had pooled there. The night was already warm, and them moving around and heating up had practically made the inside of the car a sauna.

Sam slowed down once he was empty, his breathing coming out of him ragged and tired. His eyes were open now, but his lids were heavy and looked almost swollen. He let go of Dean's hands, but grabbed them again before Dean could drop them.

"S-sorry," he slurred out. He moved on top of Dean's still-hard cock, then arched his back and whined. Dean winced in sympathy, knowing how painfully sensitive everything down there got after a really good orgasm. Or a really crappy orgasm. Just any orgasm at all, really. "You didn't get to come...I'll - "

"No," Dean interrupted. "You're okay." He disentangled his fingers from Sam's. He couldn't tell if he was eager to let go or if his climax had just sucked all of his strength out of him. Dean grabbed onto Sam's hips and lifted with a grunt, and Sam helped, sliding backwards off of him with a gasp and sitting down between his thighs. "You clean up and get your clothes back on. I can take care of myself."

Sam looked like he wanted to argue, but he also looked like he was way too tired to do so. Probably why he didn't say anything when Dean pulled his legs back, swung them off the seat, and sat up. He looked down at himself, where he was still solid and throbbing.

Sam had left behind a slick mixture of lube, mucus, and precome (Dean's) when he pulled off him, so Dean just put a hand on his cock and got down to business. With his other hand, he grabbed a wad of tissues out of the box they kept on the floor. It only took a few strokes for him to finish, and he aimed into the tissues when he did, so he wouldn't have too much of a mess to clean up. He wiped his stomach and wilting dick clean when he was done, then balled the tissues up tightly and shoved them into the pocket of his jeans so he'd remember to throw them away later. He pulled his boxers and T-shirt back on, and left it at that.

Sam was already laying down, eyes closed. Dean noted that he was wearing the same thing as him as he climbed over him in order to open the back doors. The car needed to air out; it was way too hot and smelled like sex. Dad probably wouldn't come back before morning, but Dean didn't want him to have any clue about what they'd been doing then.

When Dean laid down, Sam (who he'd thought had already conked out) pushed himself up onto all fours, groaning, and crawled on top of him again. Dean groaned, too - it was too hot to cuddle, and Sam was still bony and awkward. He didn't shove him off, though.

"Dad'll flip if he finds us like this," Dean mumbled. Dad was okay - just barely - with the two of them sleeping side-by-side in the back seat, but it was his opinion that they were way too old for Sam to sleep on top of Dean.

He regretted pointing it out immediately. Since Sam had probably forgotten all about Dad by now.

Sam didn't go ballistic, though. All he did was move his shoulders a tiny bit in what might have been a shrug. Then he snuggled closer.

"Let him," he mumbled back.

* * *

Mid-October, 2005

* * *

Dean's eyes popped open when he came to the end of the memory - where he'd fallen asleep eight years and some change ago. He had to close them again a second later, to keep the motel's ridiculously-hard water off of his eyeballs. He lifted a hand to wipe the worst of it out of his face so he could see what he was doing, hesitated, and swore under his breath as he realized where his other hand was.

Dean felt his cheeks heating up, ashamed, as he yanked his hand off of his hard cock. No wonder Sam didn't want anything to do with him anymore. He really was a pervert, jacking off to a memory from when his brother was only fourteen without even realizing it.

He reached for the handles and turned the water temperature almost all the way down. He jumped and cursed again when the ice-cold spray hit him, but stuck it out. It made his muscles knot up again as he went about scrubbing himself with shampoo and body wash, but at least it definitively killed his boner.

Dean felt like an ice sculpture when he got out of the shower, numb and pale. Putting clothes on helped a little bit. When he opened the bathroom door, he saw Sam across the room, sitting in a flimsy chair. There was a Styrofoam box on his lap, and he stood up and held it out when he saw Dean. He didn't take so much as one step towards him, though.

"Here," he said, voice quiet and oddly flat. "Eggs and sausage."

"Oh." Dean was surprised that Sam had grabbed him some of his favorite food, instead of trying to force some kind of organic whole-grain gluten-free vegan crap on him. "Thanks."

It looked like Sam tried to smile, but couldn't quite manage it. "Just trying to keep you happy."

"Thanks," Dean repeated, reaching for the box. Before he could grab it, Sam's hand twitched violently, and he dropped it.

"Crap!" he exclaimed.

"Hey, no big deal. It's okay." It hadn't broken open, so the food inside had to be fine. Dean crouched to pick it up (which hurt), and sighed through his nose when Sam took a step away from him so he wouldn't accidentally touch him. He looked up at him. His hair hung around his face, which made his eyes look impossibly dark in the room's cheap, low light. Two solid black pits. The illusion passed when Dean straightened up.

"What's wrong?" he asked him, shaking his head. He just wanted to _know_ , because then he could fix it. Maybe. At least it wouldn't hurt so bad.

"I don't know," Sam replied. To Dean, his voice sounded bleak.

Dean didn't say anything in response to that, and the two of them just stared at each other in silence for a while. Or, rather, Dean stared. Sam avoided his eyes and looked blankly at an area that might have been somewhere near Dean's knees. When the quiet had stretched out just long enough to become extremely uncomfortable, Sam coughed softly and shuffled to the door.

"I'll go and check us out," he said. With the way he was facing, Dean almost doubted that he was talking to him. "You should eat. As soon as you're done, we can hit the road."

"Yep," Dean answered. That wouldn't've been a bad course of action - if he didn't feel like Sam was just using checking them out of the room as an excuse to get away from him. His out-of-the-blue aversion gave every single thing he did a new meaning.

Dean sat down on the foot of the bed and popped the container open. He ate the lukewarm food inside only because he felt like he should; he wasn't all that hungry this morning.

Dean didn't know how far it was to Lamona from here, but between his aching muscles and Sam, he really wasn't looking forward to the drive.


	26. Chapter Twenty-six

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: There's rape in this chapter. Not real rape, memories get manipulated, but...yeah, it's still rape. If that's a trigger for you, or you just don't like to read about anyone, especially Dean, violating Sam, skip this chapter. Or at least the flashback in it. It's not necessary for understanding the rest of the story. I don't think so, at least.

_You shouldn't have done that._

Sam was crammed, once again, into one of his feet, soul or consciousness or whatever you wanted to call it crumpled as tightly as a piece of tissue paper and vibrating with resentment. As far away as he could get from his head and, apparently, the seat of Lucy's power, he was doing his best to block out her chiding voice. Even though he knew that she was all around him anyway

_Not that it made much difference, of course._

It wasn't working. The demon's words crept towards him along the muscles that she controlled, and oozed down the arteries that were as full of her black smoke as they were of blood. And, of course, she seemed to be able to speak directly into his mind, which was the main obstacle he kept coming up against.

_How does it make you feel, Sammy? To realize that that brother-slash-fuckbuddy of yours doesn't even know you well enough to be able to tell when you're..._ not yourself _?_

She'd left him alone for the rest of the night, after siccing his father on him, and all of the morning. But then he'd had to go and screw it up and turn the Eye of Sauron back on himself. Sam had been watching passively through the eyes that Lucy had stolen from him, tired in a spiritual sense from being on alert all night. When he'd seen Dean come out of the bathroom, freshly-showered and hurt and confused by the games that Lucy was playing with him, he'd forgotten all about what'd happened last night. He'd had to try and get him to notice that something was wrong again. So he'd attacked his own wrist, made Lucy drop Dean's breakfast and, once again, utterly failed to get his older brother's attention. He wasn't sure who he was most angry with: himself, Dean, or Lucy.

No, Lucy. Definitely Lucy. He hated her the most, because if she'd never come along and completely screwed everything up, he wouldn't even have a reason to be mad at Dean.

_I was hoping you'd maybe learned your lesson after last night,_ Lucy lamented, _but it looks like we're just getting started. Like I thought._

_No!_ Sam would have recoiled, but there was nowhere for him to recoil to. He was right up against the boundaries of his body. _This is_ my _body. You're a parasite, and your days in here are numbered. You don't have any authority. Leave me alone._

Lucy laughed. Like always, it was ghastly. Sam wanted his skin back, so that it could crawl in response. Being alienated inside his own body got more disorienting with every minute that passed.

_Are you still thinking big brother's gonna eventually swoop in and save you? That I can't keep using you as my very own meat puppet for as long as I want?_ Lucy cooed. _That's okay. It shouldn't be that hard to stamp that idea out of you - it'll go out with almost everything else when I_ break _you._

There was malicious glee in her voice. Sam wished for a throat he could swallow with.

_Leave me alone,_ he repeated. If he'd actually been talking out loud, he might've been able to sound brave and angry, but his inner voice (which was the only one he had access to right now) gave away the fear he was feeling.

_Time for another session, Sam,_ Lucy replied, practically singing into his mind. _Come on up._

_No!_ Sam bristled in the blackness, trying to be aggressive. He felt so small, and so young.

_You can either come up on your own..._ The veins and capillaries that Sam was currently woven through for support shuddered, like something was coming down them. _...or I can drag you up again._

Sam hated himself for it, but he couldn't handle the demon purposefully touching his raw self again, so he did what Lucy told him to. He crawled reluctantly out of the little niche he'd folded himself into, then slowly floated up through the seething, demon-infested darkness of his leg and torso. The rhythm of his heart shuddered through him as he passed it, and he found it comforting. Lucy could make him walk and talk, but she couldn't touch his heart - it would keep on doing what it'd been coded to do back when he was still just a blob of cells smaller than his thumb. Unless she made him shoot himself in the head or something.

Lucy made an approving clucking noise as Sam climbed up into his skull. Immediately, he had access to his eyes, nose, and ears again, and he willfully ignored her for a few seconds so he could take in his surroundings.

He was in the passenger seat of the Impala, looking out the windshield. It looked like they were going fifty or sixty miles an hour, and he could tell they were heading out of town. Lucy turned his head, and he saw Dean at the wheel. His expression and posture suggested that driving hurt. And of course it did - Lucy had made him sleep in the car last night. He must be all kinds of sore.

Before he could weigh the pros and cons of confronting the demon about that, Sam's eyes closed. Then he was back in the blank white space from last night, and back in his fake body. Fear immediately zinged down his spine as everything that had happened here came rushing back to him with gut-wrenching clarity.

"I'm putting you to sleep." Sam turned around. Lucy was standing four or five yards away from him. He automatically fell into a defensive position, one he'd picked up back when his father had been teaching him how to grapple and spar hand-to-hand and making him practice with Dean. "My mind's basically the same as yours, and it'd just be too hard to interact with you and your brother at the same time."

Despite the situation and everything that was happening, Sam's natural curiosity was piqued by that. He unconsciously relaxed a little. "What do you mean?"

"I know, I know, having you sleep next to him isn't really in line with my plan of making him think you hate and fear him," Lucy continued like he hadn't spoken. "But a false sense of security can be useful, too."

Sam felt his upper lip curl into a sneer of disgust. Lucy smiled at him, which was disconcerting - and she'd probably meant it to be.

"I was digging through your memories last night while you were sulking," Lucy said conversationally. She shifted her weight into one hip, adopting a relaxed pose. "And I found a good one. One I thought you might like to relive. So I pulled it out, dusted it off...tweaked it a little." She smiled again. Sam's fake stomach rolled. "I'm interested to see if you can pick out my changes."

"What - " Before Sam could get the second word out, Lucy moved, and then she was standing next to him. Her claws dug into the skin on the back of his neck, tearing flesh and drawing blood. Then she picked him up. Sam swung from her jagged nails and the points of bone that showed through several of her fingertips, mewling in pain, suddenly no bigger than a newborn kitten in relation to Lucy.

A hole spontaneously opened in the whiteness below him. Sam stared at it, feeling his eyes bug out in terror. He had no idea what memory it was or what Lucy had done to it, but he knew he wanted to stay out of it more than anything else in the world right now. Even more than he wanted Dean to exorcise Lucy. All he could see was inky darkness, somehow blacker than what was in his body.

"Have fun, Sammy." She dropped him, and the edges of the hole raced away from his desperate hands too fast for him to grab on.

* * *

Late July, 1997

* * *

Sam's breathing was fast and ragged, making his chest heave up and down. He was sitting on something, and he dug his fingers into it, desperate for something stable to hold onto. It took him a few seconds to calm down and realize where - and when - he was.

He was in the Impala. In the passenger seat, and it was dark. Light from a building across the parking lot that the car was in provided just enough illumination to see by. He looked down at his body, and judging by the fact that it was about a third of the size he was used to, he guessed he was probably around thirteen or fourteen. He straightened up, and looked at the building's sign, and the stack of books sitting next to him on the seat, and the hand-me-down jeans that he was wearing.

Sam knew this memory, and just knowing where he was and what was going to happen made him relax. He _was_ fourteen, and Dean was eighteen, and it was the summer of 'ninety-seven in South Carolina. They were hunting a small cult of amateur voodoo practitioners who had been attacking the local clergy, angry at the work they'd been doing to disrupt their curses. But tonight, his father had left him and Dean in the car and gone into the nearest bar to get wasted and bang whatever cheap whore happened to catch his eye.

A few things were different, though. Like the light. The shadows it threw were deep and sinister, and it was tinged faintly red. Sam looked at the books again, but couldn't make out the titles in it. He didn't remember what he'd been reading back then. His memory wasn't quite that good. The atmosphere was creepy, sure, but Sam had grown up stalking witches through graveyards and tracking wendigos across dead-silent pine forests. Lucy was going to have to do a lot more than that if she wanted to really unsettle him.

That was when what must have been some of her other "changes" kicked in, and Sam started to hurt. A little gasp puffed out of him as he leaned forward, putting a hand on his chest. He grabbed the collar of his T-shirt and pulled it down, revealing the source of at least some of his pain - there were a couple of dark bruises on the side of his tiny, prepubescent chest. He thought so, at least. They might've just been shadows cast by the weird light.

His arms were bruised, too, he noticed - and these ones were shaped like fingers, instead of being irregular blobs of darkness. He could tell that these definitely weren't shadows. Someone had grabbed him and squeezed hard enough to break the blood vessels in his skin.

Sam swallowed. Okay, this was a little more unnerving. He shifted on the leather seat, then made a face. Out of nowhere there was a lot of pain down at his entrance, too. It felt raw - torn. Had Lucy made him sick or something? Maybe the John in this version of the memory knew about him and Dean and had been hitting him, and that'd depressed his immune system.

"I don't think he's coming back anytime soon." Dean's voice, higher than it would be eight years from now but still pretty low and rough, brought him out of his musings. Sam glanced over at his brother, just a tall silhouette in the driver's seat, and felt a flutter of sick, complicated fear in his stomach that he didn't understand.

That was supposed to be his line, Sam realized. This must be one of the changes that Lucy had made. He wasn't sure what the purpose was, though - besides being really confusing. Since he wasn't sure anymore who had actually said it.

Was he experiencing a copy of his memory that Lucy had altered? Or had she messed with his actual, real memory? Thinking about it made him uncomfortable.

"He said he would, didn't he?" Sam replied, the words springing naturally into his mouth. Looked like he didn't have any choice in whether or not to follow the new script that Lucy had set this memory to. "Just as soon as he's done interviewing witnesses."

Dean had his arms folded across his chest, and he turned his head to give Sam a wry smile. The light outlined the edges of his full lips. Sam had no idea why that familiar smirk made him feel the way it did. Excited, but also...bad. Afraid and nervous, and guilty because of those two things. "We both know that's not what he's doing. And we both know he's not coming back."

Sam chose to focus purely on the wrongness of the dialogue rather than of his feelings. It was just easier - and safer. There was something truly sick under the surface here, and he really didn't want to know what it was. His soul was battered enough, and maybe he could keep himself in the dark if he just...didn't...push.

This was wrong because Dean had always been the one with unshakable faith in their father. It was a trait that had actually made Sam unsteady with anger before, back when...well, back before he'd left for college. The Dean he remembered had always believed the absolute best about John Winchester - that he would come back when he said he would, that he really was out hunting solo and not puking whiskey on the side of a deserted road, that he hadn't actually forgotten Sam's birthday. As Sam grew up, he'd started recognizing and stopped believing the lies that their father told them with a gruff voice and minimal eye contact. Dean never had, though. Either that, or he'd done a swell job of hiding his bitterness.

But now Lucy had reversed their roles in this memory, and Sam didn't know why. But he was sure he didn't like it.

"Let's give him another few minutes," Sam suggested quietly, which made him frown inside. Dean had been the one who'd wanted to wait, and he knew that because he'd looked at his watch to get the time. The watch Sam had given him as a birthday present, bought with the few dollars he'd earned doing odd jobs around a motel they'd stayed at once. He couldn't tell if Dean was even wearing a watch here.

"Well, yeah, I guess we could, but..." Dean trailed off as he stretched, groaning. Sam heard his back pop. He continued when he was done. "...I really think we're good. He's probably not even in the bar anymore, anyway." Before Sam could wonder if Dean meant they were good to have sex, he turned to smile kindly at him. It should have been soothing, after everything he'd been through recently. And, to a certain extent, it was. But it also started a faint but unmistakable feeling of foreboding welling up in him. Dean stretched out an arm towards him. "C'mere, Sammy."

Sam did, scooting across the leather of the Impala's front seat until he was nestled up against Dean and his older brother's arm was around his shoulders. He was craving contact and affection, which was perfectly normal, and he was also nervous about something, which wasn't. He could tell he didn't like the nickname "Sammy," too, and he doubted that that was a deviation from the original memory. Even now, when he was fully ready to shower naked with Dean because he was starved for his attention, he only tolerated it.

"I hate when he does this," Sam mumbled into the soft fabric of Dean's T-shirt. The familiar scent of him wasn't quite as comforting as it should have been, but he still reveled in it when he breathed it in. He missed Dean so much, with Lucy keeping him at arm's length and beyond.

"Yeah, I know," Dean replied quietly, stroking Sam's hair with his thumb. It felt nice. "Dad ran off and left us - again." He gave him a gentle squeeze. "But you've still got me, doncha?"

Sam felt relief at the pure gentleness of Dean's squeeze. Dammit, he wished he knew what was going on here. Or maybe he didn't. "Yeah. You're still here."

"So." Dean's lips ghosted over Sam's temple. His heart sped up, and he wasn't sure if it was excitement, fear, or both. "We know Dad won't be back 'til morning, at least. And as much as I'd like to lay you out on our bed back at the room, do this right, we can't really drive off without him." There was an apology in his voice. "So what d'you say we climb in the back and...? Y'know." Another kiss on Sam's temple, this one lasting longer. "Lemme show you how I'm always gonna be there for you."

Sam swallowed. He didn't want to, he realized. And that _really_ didn't make sense, because he'd been off-the-hook horny at this age. There'd even been times when his appetite for sex had surpassed Dean's - which, knowing what he did now about Dean's near-inexhaustible libido, shocked him every time he thought about it.

Oh, he really didn't want to know what Lucy had done to kill his sex drive.

"I dunno, Dean," he said quietly, pulling back and looking up at him as he slowly shook his head. "I don't feel too good tonight. Maybe we could just go to sleep? 'S not like Dad's not gonna leave us alone again first chance he gets."

Dean frowned, looking troubled. More than a little guilty, too. His face was hard to make out in the strange light of the memory, which Lucy had messed up even further, but Sam had always been able to read him like a book. Especially when he was still so young.

"Hey," he said, his voice quiet. His arm loosened around Sam's shoulders. "Is this about...what happened last time?"

Another, fractured memory suddenly invaded this one. A blow to his ribs. Hands squeezing his wrists so tight he could feel the slender bones there grinding painfully against each other. Angry yelling. And pain, awful pain, down where he should never feel any kind of hurt like that. Twenty-two-year-old Sam, just a passenger in his remembered body now, jerked and gasped silently with shock.

"No," Sam said, and it came out just a little too quick. The guilt on Dean's face seemed to double.

"I..." He stopped and swallowed. He pulled his arm off of Sam, too. "I'm real sorry about that, Sammy. I just...I really don't know what happened. It'd been a long day, and you said no, and I got mad. Shouldn't've. And I promised you it'd never happen again, didn't I?"

"Yes," Sam admitted, but there was an emptiness inside him. All of a sudden, he knew that that hadn't been the first time that Dean'd gotten mad when he said no, but it'd been the worst. This wasn't the first time he'd apologized for it, either.

Information flooded in - courtesy of Lucy, he was sure. It was like a tap had been turned on in his head, filling his mind with dirty, freezing water. He didn't want to look, didn't want to know how she'd twisted this memory into something so awful, but he didn't have a choice. So he started understanding what was going on, and why he was feeling the way he was.

He didn't love Dean. She'd made it so he didn't love his brother here. Or, well, that wasn't quite true, he did - just not the way that Dean loved him. He didn't want to be anything more than brothers, close brothers, and hadn't for a long, long time. But he hadn't ever had a say in it, because he and Dean had been involved for as long as he could remember (that was still accurate, at least). And he'd just recently figured out how to tell Dean how he felt.

"I feel...so, so bad," Dean was saying. He took one of Sam's hands and started down at the bruises on his wrist with blank eyes, like he couldn't believe he'd put them there. "I can't believe I hurt you like this. I've been beating myself up about it since it happened."

Dean hadn't wanted to hear it. At first, he'd just smiled and looked a little puzzled, like he couldn't really understand what Sam was saying. Then, when he'd persisted, he'd gotten annoyed every time he brought up how uncomfortable it made him, or said he didn't want to make love. And then the anger had started. The yelling, the poking and shoving that turned to punching and manhandling. It got worse every time, Dean's anger grew, until, last time, he'd hit him in the ribs and stomach until he stopped yelling back, threw him on the bed, grabbed his wrists to keep him from lashing out in self-defense, and -

_No_. Sam's mind bucked as he completely rejected it. Lucy's cobbled-together rape fantasy was just _ridiculous_ , and he absolutely refused to let any part of it get to him. It was impossible. Sure, Dean could be violent as hell. And yes - he'd hit him before. In practice sparring and roughhousing, and in other circumstances, too. When he'd crossed the line in complaining about their father and inadvertently touched one of Dean's own raw nerves, or when something about their mother slipped out. In other words, when he deserved it. And it was never any worse than a swollen eye, or in anyplace more vulnerable than his cheekbone. And Dean always seemed to regret doing it.

_And_ Dean had never, _ever_ raped him - or anyone else - and never would. He didn't have it in him, everything they'd done had been purely consensual. He might've been frustrated when he was in the mood and Sam wasn't, but he never would've considered forcing him into it.

_This isn't going to work on me._

It was sloppy. Garish. Overdone. His fear was gone, and with it, any sort of horrified interest he might have had in what was happening. So he checked out. Didn't pay attention to the cliched "I'll-never-do-it-again" apology speech Dean gave him, which he'd never say in real life, because he wasn't even close to being an abuser. He ignored it when he took his shoes off and climbed into the back seat to wait obediently for Dean, having given in to his cajoling. It wasn't even a blip on his radar when Dean prepped him with exaggeratedly-gentle movements.

It was stupid. Sam thought about other things - how to get Dean to notice his possession, what he'd tell him once Lucy was gone, what they could do. Maybe...maybe they could finally sleep with each other again, for real, but they'd have to get out Lucy soon if he wanted to do that. If she kept letting his dad out, he might be too broken by the time came.

No. He was strong. He wouldn't - _ow._

Inside his remembered body, Sam twitched all of a sudden, something interrupting his train of thought. Something painful. It took him a second to realize what was going on: he and fake memory-Dean were having sex. Awesome. He might've enjoyed it, actually - if it hadn't hurt. He would've been surprised if it hadn't, because Lucy had given him a sore, ravaged hole here, the already-sensitive flesh down there swollen and tender from his brother's rough (and completely fake) violation.

He mentally shook his head and tried to block the pain out. It didn't matter, because it hadn't really happened, and it never would. He struggled to think about the good things that he'd been losing himself in before. But it wasn't working, as he realized after a few minutes. It just kept...building, intruding, breaking him up so that, for a few second at a time, he couldn't focus on anything except how much it hurt.

His father had taught him how to take pain - him and Dean both, figuring that, someday, they might be tortured by the things that they hunted. But he'd never taught him how to handle it when it was down there, in one of his most vulnerable spots. Or when the pain was coming from Dean. Before Sam knew what was happening, he was back in the moment, and he couldn't escape again. He was trapped inside the memory and all he could think about was the painful sex.

Right now, he was riding Dean in the back seat of the Impala, which really had happened. But it hadn't been nearly so painful. It felt like there was a piece of rebar inside him instead of a cock, scraping away what little healing he'd been able to do since last time with its harsh metal ridges. He whimpered and gasped a little every time he lifted himself up and lowered himself back down, unable to keep the sounds inside. Even his prostate was sore; Dean's head and shaft rubbing against it didn't give him any pleasure.

It was jarring. Sex had always felt good for Sam - that very last time, the one that'd set in motion everything that'd sent him running to Stanford without Dean, had been great. It was what had come afterwards that had sucked. Hell, even when the sex itself was disappointing, like when they were both tired or one of them just couldn't come, it definitely didn't _hurt_.

But maybe that was what Lucy's plan was. To ruin one of the few things that had always picked him up and made him feel closer to his brother - made him feel important and loved.

"I don't - think I can - I can't do this, De," Sam said, voice thin and reedy with pain. He saw something in Dean's eyes go soft when the nickname slipped out.

"You're okay," Dean soothed. "You're doing fine. You can do this. It'll be okay."

"It _hurts_." Sam squeezed his eyes shut. With how little of the odd light made it into the back seat, it didn't change much.

"I'll help you." Dean had been letting Sam hang onto his hands, so he could use them to lift and lower himself, but now he untangled their fingers and put his hands on Sam's hips. "Grab onto me." Sam put his hands on Dean's biceps, sweating, and worried his lower lip mercilessly between his teeth. "It'll start feeling good soon. Promise."

He started moving him on his own, and Sam clung to the knowledge that this was something the real Dean wouldn't ever do in a million years. If he'd told him something hurt, he would've stopped them right then, and probably spent hours apologizing and fussing over him, too. This Dean didn't do that. Sam would have felt like he was using his body to masturbate, if he hadn't taken one of his hands off his hip after a couple of minutes and started using it to jerk him off.

Yeah, he was hard. That didn't necessarily mean that he was aroused, though - Sam hadn't actually been aware that it was possible to be one without the other. It was just a reaction to what was happening to him, something that had been trained into him. Like his heartbeat speeding up during a hunt even though he wasn't really scared.

A shudder ran through him as the pure _wrongness_ of what was happening here crested inside of him. He swallowed the bile that was rising in his throat and squeezed his eyes shut more tightly. This was what had made him leave, years ago. This was what he'd been feeling every time he'd looked at Dean when he'd first picked him up from Stanford, what he'd been trying so hard to avoid, why he'd twisted away from every touch and shot down every attempt to make up. Being fucked by his biological brother, his father and mother's son, was a perversion, and it didn't matter how they felt about each other. It was a sin. This kind of sex was poisoning both of them, and Sam would never be able to scrub it off of his soul no matter how far he ran or how hard he tried to forget.

"Good boy," Dean praised softly as Sam came by reflex, a weak, lukewarm dribble. Dean came a few seconds later. Sam dug his fingernails into the flesh of his brother's arms, filled with a nameless horror. And Dean's seed, burning like acid against his bruised and puffy insides.

They cleaned up and pulled their clothes back on. Dean apologized for the pain and told him he loved him, which normally would have warranted a warm rush of affection because Dean was stingy with his "love"s, but Sam just nodded numbly. He felt violated. And that emotion didn't belong entirely to the teenage Sam from the memory, who'd just been pushed into doing something he didn't want. The real Sam, the one who existed now, honestly hadn't expected to feel that sickness at his and Dean's relationship ever again. It'd been lightening up with every day that passed, growing fainter along with his father's voice, and if he hadn't gotten possessed, it might just be gone by now.

He shouldn't be surprised that Lucy had dug that awful, crippling feeling up and injected it into this memory. She'd let the version of his father that he'd built up to torture himself out of its cage, after all. But it'd shocked him, and hurt him, and made him feel like something awful had been done to him against his will.

Young Sam and the fake Dean that Lucy had made spread a couple of blankets over the back seat, then Dean opened the doors to air the car out. He didn't want their father to find out what they'd been doing, Sam realized tiredly. They laid down on their sides, and Dean held him tightly against his chest. Possessively. Almost like he was afraid Sam might try and run away during the night.

_No. I slept on top of him. He complained about my weight, and he held me gently._

Hadn't he?

Sam just wanted to go to sleep. He was sure that things would be better in the morning. He always believed that; he had to. Before he could drop off, though, a series of realizations hit him, as unexpected and unpleasant as a kick to the groin.

_He's just using me._

_He doesn't love me._

_He thinks he's entitled to me because we're brothers._

_I don't mean anything to him._

It was like Sam's entire chest had been opened up, all the layers of skin and bone and muscle peeled savagely back, and the tip of a razor-sharp icicle had been touched to his bare, beating heart. He was sick and horrified and he felt used and broken. And he couldn't comprehend it, but this was very nearly the worst he'd ever felt, and he couldn't handle it, he needed out, he needed out, he needed _out_ he _needed out he needed out_ -

In one of the spaces between the ragged, panicked breaths that Sam was gulping in, he left the car and came back to the white place. He was on all fours on the indistinguishable ground, and he could see his hands, as large and scarred as they should be for his age. He was shuddering. Then, out of the blue, his stomach gave a violent lurch, and he vomited onto his fingers.

It looked like oil, when the worst of the nausea passed and he could open his eyes. Thick and black. And it was evaporating even as he watched, boiling off into black smoke.

"Well," Lucy said from somewhere nearby, sounding vaguely amused. "I'd say I hit a sore spot."

_"No,"_ Sam spit, pushing himself up onto his knees with hands that were just a few spots of black from being clean. He looked around until he found Lucy, a little ways off to his right, and glared at her with as much hatred as he could muster. After what he'd just been through, it was a lot. "I don't know what the hell you were trying to do, but you screwed it up. That was - _trash_. Thrown together. You didn't do anything to me - you failed. That was pathetic."

Lucy regarded him with her overlarge black eyes, glassy, lidless orbs sunk too deep in her skull. She tapped one of her exposed teeth with a jagged fingernail. It was an almost contemplative gesture. Sam kept glaring: he refused to be the first to look away.

But then Lucy spoke and made him blink. So...so much for that.

"You're right," she said, and Sam thought that he must have heard her wrong. He just stared at her now, instead of glaring.

"What?" he asked blankly. Lucy took her hand away from her mouth and gave him what might have been an apologetic smile.

"You're right," she repeated. "It _was_ pathetic. Thrown together. All your criticism, it was true."

Sam was still trying to process that (for some reason, his mind was a little worn out) when Lucy pulled her awful teleportation trick again. She was kneeling in front of him, smiling tenderly at him, and she cupped his chin with one corpselike hand as she cooed, "But, Sammy, you couldn't've expected our first time to be perfect. We haven't gotten to know each other yet."

Sam jerked back like she'd burned him with her touch, falling on his ass in the process, and smacked her hand away with all his strength. "Don't touch me!"

Lucy laughed as she straightened up. "Don't be stupid. I'm _inside_ you. I'm already touching you everywhere."

Sam scrambled backwards, crabwalking. He couldn't find it in himself to get to his feet, and he fiercely swallowed back the tears of frustration that threatened to fall. Lucy easily followed him with a languid, swaying walk.

"But even as bad as this first bout was," she said, "I still think there were a few highlights." She smiled again, leaning down to pet Sam's hair. "Like whatever it was that made you throw up."

Her tone made it perfectly clear that they both knew what it had been. What had started it, and what had pushed him over the edge. Sam shook his head to dislodge the demon's hand.

"You didn't get to me," he repeated stubbornly. "You _can't_ get to me."

Lucy just smiled reassuringly.

"I'll just learn from my mistakes," she promised. "And we'll do this again. And again and again and again, real soon. Just wait, Sam. I"ll cure you of that perverted love you have for your brother. We'll get past this."

Sam flipped her off. He would've liked to do something more dignified, but it'd been a rough couple of days. And it was what Dean might have done.

"You can kiss my ass," he told her defiantly. Lucy laughed again.

"Speaking of your brother," she began once she was done cackling, "I think I'll go ahead and wake you back up. I feel like playing with him again."

Sam, spiritually raw and emotionally drained, didn't want to watch. But when the whiteness disappeared, the black smoke in his head locked in tight and inescapable around him, and held him right behind his eyes as they started to open.


	27. Chapter Twenty-seven

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To everyone who's commented on anything I've written: I've gotten them, and I've read them, and thank you. I'm just even slower about replying than I am about updating this story.

"Okay." Dean threw his hands up in the air, frustrated, and flopped back into the stiff plastic library chair. The back creaked alarmingly as it bent where it wasn't supposed to, but he didn't care. He'd pay for it if he ended up breaking it. "I officially have _no_ idea what we're up against."

"Mm," came a grunt from behind him. "Really."

Dean twisted in the chair, putting more stress on it. The sides bowed out in sharp points, the maroon plastic turning pink as it stretched, but, again, he didn't give a damn. He was too focused on glaring at Sam where he was sitting at a small table with his laptop, and on clamping down on the raw nerves twanging hot and sore inside him.

It hadn't been a great few days, in either his professional life or his personal one. And given how closely those two things tended to be, he'd just about reached the end of his rope.

"Y'know, Sam, if you wanna say something shitty about me, you can just come out and say it," Dean snapped. He kept his voice low, even though he felt like yelling. He was pretty sure that they were the only two people here, but Lamona's only library was tiny, and he didn't want to catch the attention of the wrinkled little librarian sitting at the front desk. "The way you've been acting, I'm sure I did something to deserve it."

"Trying to do research," Sam mumbled, eyes glued to the screen of his laptop. Dean doubted he could really be that absorbed. The computer that he'd been using himself was a dinosaur, but he could tell that the library's wifi would suck no matter how advanced your system was.

"I know I'm stupid," Dean said. Deliberately. Trying to get the usual reaction out of Sam, the one that'd slowly become almost a reflex over the years. The one he could always count on. Like Sam calling him a jerk when he accused him of being a bitch.

"I didn't say that." Not _No, you're not_. Dean had been expecting it, but it still made his stomach twist painfully.

He wasn't sure why it felt like such a betrayal when it was just like everything else that'd been happening all week. He wished he'd just get used to Sam's new attitude already so that it'd stop hurting.

"Right." Dean turned back to the computer and logged out of the "Guest" account with hard, angry keystrokes, then stood up, giving the chair a break. Looked like it was permanently bent a little out of shape now. He felt a stab of sympathy for it. "I'm gonna go get something to eat. I need a break."

"I'll be here," Sam said quietly. Another subtle little jab, one that Dean definitely wasn't too dumb to catch. Sam would keep on doing research while Dean went out and screwed around and wasted time - as usual.

Dean really, _really_ wanted to hit him. Sam had always been able to get under his skin like nobody else, but he'd never used that like he was using it now. Dean kept his hands from even clenching into fists, though. He didn't need to give Sam something else to hate him for right now - or another reason for him to flinch away from him later.

He left the library, needing to get out before he did something he regretted. Because he knew that the next time he saw Sam, it'd probably leave him feeling lost and broken and confused again instead of pissed off. He was getting emotional whiplash.

When he reached the Impala, he unlocked it, pulled the door open, and dropped into the driver's seat. He braced his elbows against the steering wheel and rubbed his hands over his face, eyes closed, waiting for the familiar surroundings to soothe him. And maybe they would've, if it hadn't been a place that was just swimming in happy memories of him and Sam. It even _smelled_ kinda like Sam, mixed in with the leather and the gunpowder and the whiskey and the cologne that Dean wore. Not all that relaxing, with everything that was going on.

"Christ, what'd I do to deserve this?" Dean muttered to himself, under his breath. Of course, from a religious perspective, he knew _exactly_ what he'd done - he'd boned another guy, which was supposedly the worst crime ever to hear the Bible-thumpers tell it, and even worse, that guy had been his little brother. So now he was being punished for committing a couple of cardinal sins.

But Dean was scraping the bottom of the barrel in the faith department. He'd never been religious and never would be. He'd never seen an angel, and everybody he'd ever met who claimed to have talked to God was either crazy or lying. He believed in demons, because he'd actually come face-to-face with a few of those and sent them packing. But as far as he was concerned, everything else in the Bible was a fairy tale.

Actually, that was unfair to fairy tales, since most of them were at least partially true. Witches and curses were plenty real, for example. The Bible was fiction, and if Dean believed in anything, it was that no one and nothing cared where he stuck it, and there was no cosmic penance for incest or sodomy.

He _was_ being punished. But not by God, and not for his longest-running relationship. By Sam, or something he couldn't for the life of him figure out.

He had to've done something. There had to be a reason that what they'd been so carefully rebuilding between the two of them had died - that Sam was back to acting how he had when Dean had first gotten him from college. But now that he thought about it, no, he was definitely acting worse now than he had been then, because at least back then, he'd just been mad. Dean had been able to count on him being prickly. He missed that now.

The thing was, if he'd screwed up so badly that he'd made Sam start hating him again...well, he felt like he should remember what he'd done. And he didn't. Dean couldn't figure out anything he'd done differently, any mistake he might've made. The one possibility he kept coming back to (the only possibility he'd been able to come up with, really) was the fact that he'd let Sam shower with him that one night. Because the day after that was when all of this had really started. But Sam was the one who'd climbed into the tub with him, and Dean had gone out of his way to keep from touching him below the waist, not wanting to rush him or bring on one of those freaky seizure things. So he doubted it was that.

Dean moved his hands and rested his forehead against the top of the steering wheel. It pressed on his sinuses, making them throb uncomfortably, but he already had a headache, so it didn't make much of a difference. He couldn't remember exactly when it'd started. But he was sure it was stress-related.

Just like his appetite, which had been shot to hell for the past few days. He hadn't really felt hungry, and none of his favorite foods had sounded or tasted good to him. This was a new thing for him. Dean didn't have a problem admitting that he had a bad habit of eating his feelings; he went straight for bacon cheeseburgers and pie when a case was particularly stressful for him, or after he screwed up on a hunt. He'd hit it really hard after Sam had left for California. Good thing he had a fast metabolism and got so much exercise.

So, needless to say, he'd lied in the library - he wasn't going to go get anything to eat. He just needed to get away from Sam for awhile. Which was also a new thing for him, since he'd had a very strong need to do exactly the opposite of that for pretty much his entire life.

Dean closed his eyes.

* * *

They'd been in Lamona for about four days now. Five, if you counted the day they'd showed up, which Dean didn't because they'd gotten here at nine at night and just fallen straight into bed. Separate beds. In separate rooms. Of course. It'd put a strain on the credit card that he'd used, but Dean had gotten them without even asking Sam first. He'd made it perfectly clear that he didn't want to be anywhere near him, and especially not while he was asleep.

The next morning, Dean had finally got the details of the case that Sam intended them to work, and he'd started wishing that he would've pushed past the barriers that his brother had thrown up, back in Colorado, and interrogated him about this hunt before they'd driven all the way up to Washington. Because if he'd known how freaking weird it was, he might just have elected to leave it for another hunter to take.

It was a triple murder in a locked house, a real nice one out in a newer subdivision on the edges of town. That did sound exactly like the kind of thing that they tended to investigate, and Dean's first thought would've been a vengeful ghost, or something else that could walk through walls. But the vics (husband, wife, and their live-in housekeeper) had drowned - because the entire house had filled up with water. The neighbors had noticed and called the police when a window broke and it all started pouring out.

Ghosts didn't do that.

They'd gone with an old standby for this investigation: FBI agents. It was usually the easiest to pull off, because there were two of them, and it gave them unquestioned access to just about everywhere they needed to go. Which had wound up being useless here, because the local authorities were stumped and didn't have much to give them. The water hadn't come from the pipes in the house - it was river water, complete with mud and algae. Only the husband had worked. The maid, sleeping on the lowest floor, had died last, and was the only one without a panicked, bug-eyed expression on her face. To Dean, it was a bunch of puzzle pieces whose edges didn't match up with each other.

He hated weird cases, and it seemed like that was all they'd been getting lately. Things they'd never seen before and couldn't figure out. The demon (they'd known what that one was, at least, though), the adlet, the mothman...and now this. Whatever it was, it made him miss the days when all their hunts had been ghosts and witches and werewolves, with only the occasional oddball thrown in. Between the stress of not knowing how to gank a monster or even what he was after and the stress of what was going on with Sam, Dean wouldn't be surprised to look in the mirror one of these days and find himself going prematurely gray.

Sam would've been giving him an ulcer even if the case hadn't been weird as hell. Dean didn't like to think about it, because it felt a lot like sticking his tongue into the swollen, infected pit where a tooth had gotten knocked out. It hurt, in other words. But that was a totally useless defense mechanism, seeing as what was killing him was still happening right now. So he forced himself to remember, to go back over all of it with a fine-toothed comb and see if anything new jumped out this time. Anything that would help him solve this.

It was a lot like working a case, Dean realized. Except that no case had ever hurt as bad as this did. And he really doubted that it was anything supernatural making Sam act the way he was.

His behavior had been swinging around like an out-of-control pendulum for the past few days: one minute, he'd be subdued, withdrawn, cringing away even from Dean's accidental touches like he was covered in toxic waste. Which Dean hated, but at least he'd been getting used to it. The next minute, though, he was _pissed_ , for pretty much no reason. Taut and practically vibrating with what Dean desperately hoped wasn't hate, looking straight away like he'd puke if they made eye contact, muttering subtle insults under his breath. To Dean, it came across like he was just so full of...loathing, maybe, for him that he couldn't keep it inside.

Something had happened. Maybe the shower had triggered an avalanche inside of Sam - Dean wasn't so stupid that he hadn't noticed that he'd been dealing with some kind of baggage ever since he'd gotten him in Palo Alto. He wondered if whatever had caused it had happened during the years that Sam'd been away.

Maybe he'd seen a shrink, some kind of therapist. Maybe he'd told them about what he and Dean'd had, and they'd made him understand how wrong it was and how ashamed he should be of it...and that was what'd caused his complex. The one that'd made him hate him when he first picked him up, and jerk away and grab his head and shake later.

Dean shoved the callused heels of his hands against his eyes and rested his elbows on the car's steering wheel again, where he was sitting out in the Impala. Hiding from Sam - he was man enough to admit that. He pushed until he could feel the throbbing of his heart in his sockets and they started to ache, adding to what was rapidly turning into a migraine. Somehow, thinking about that - Sam telling a stranger about them and that bastard telling him that he should hate Dean and feel guilty about what they'd done - hurt more than bringing up how his little brother had been acting since the ghost hunt in Colorado. He should go back to that.

Sam'd been triggered and now he was just swimming in emotions, Dean supposed. For him, it was a struggle between shame, wanting to forget about everything single thing they'd done and how he'd felt and maybe even Dean himself, and anger. Resentment. When he was mad, he didn't wanna let it go because he was blaming Dean for everything, Dean realized as the bottom dropped out of his stomach. Maybe he'd even talked himself back into thinking that Dean had as good as molested him.

Dean wanted there to be love in there, somewhere. Or at least the knowledge that there hadn't been anything wrong with their relationship outside of the brother thing. But so far, he hadn't seen a whole lot of evidence for that.

Eventually, he dropped his hands from his face. It was because he was finally feeling pretty confident that he wasn't going to start crying, but he barely even admitted that to himself. He was twenty-six, he was a hunter, he was the oldest Winchester, with Dad still AWOL. It should be physically impossible for him to bawl his eyes out over his boyfriend not being all that into him anymore.

Dean opened his eyes, blinked away the lingering blobs of purple and green, then jumped in his seat and swore loudly. Sam was standing right outside the car, looking in at him through the window. Dean wondered how long he'd been standing there, and why the hell he hadn't tapped on the glass to get his attention. Feeling just about as fed up as he had back in the library, Dean shoved the door open and snapped, "What? What d'you want, Sam?"

He had a whole explanation for why he was still in the library parking lot and why he'd been holding his head, cooked up in less than a second, about having a serious headache and feeling pretty sick. Sam didn't ask what was wrong with him, though. Or even why he hadn't gone and done what he'd said he would. Maybe he just didn't care, and couldn't muster the energy to pretend, either.

"I found something," Sam mumbled. He was holding his laptop, closed, loosely under one arm and not looking at Dean, eyes blank and face tired.

So he was practically terrified of him again, and that was why he hadn't knocked. Awesome.

"Okay," Dean said, the irritation and the urge to snap at Sam and make him hurt draining right out of him. He could never stay mad at Sam when he was on the uncomfortable, vulnerable end of his current spectrum; he was gonna get emotional whiplash, at this rate. "What is it?"

"The husband was in construction." Sam moved around the front of the car to get to the passenger side. He walked with his shoulders slightly hunched, like just feeling Dean's eyes on him was enough to make him hate himself and everything in his past. Dean couldn't take it - he looked away.

"Right. We knew that already," Dean agreed, flashing back to the male corpse that he'd seen in the morgue. Blue and bulging-eyed from suffocating, waterlogged and wearing a set of red silk pajamas - who the hell slept in an outfit like that? "Had his own company. That's why he was rolling in it." He closed his door and stared down at the steering wheel. He wished he had a choice between working and feeling like this, because doing both at once just sucked.

"He had a contract to build a new subdivision," Sam said. "It was in the local paper, months ago. They were scheduled to break ground this week."

"Well, that's probably not a coincidence." It never failed to amaze Dean, how normal he could make his voice sound no matter what was going on. "So...what was the site? Indian burial ground? Old graveyard? Hey, maybe it's a ghost after all." Or a curse. In which case they wouldn't be able to do squat, if it was powerful enough.

He saw Sam shake his head out of the corner of his eye, a slow, tiny movement. "There was controversy, but not because anybody was buried there. They were going to fill in a river and build on top of it."

"Yikes. You can do that?" Dean asked, making a face and glancing quickly over at Sam. Then looking away again just as quickly, because Sam was still in his broken state and just laying eyes on him was enough to make something up behind Dean's breastbone feel hollow and sore.

"Guess so," Sam answered with a shrug.

"Can't be a ghost...and probably not a curse, then, either. That was the other thing I was thinking." Running water had the tendency to disrupt all kinds of things. Dean had saved Sam's life once, back when they were teenagers, by pulling him into an irrigation ditch when a warlock's thrall (made out of a dead body and a whole lot of real nasty magic) had been after them. The thing had collapsed as soon as it'd touched the stream, the spell that'd been making it move gone.

It probably wasn't healthy to think about that. Or how they'd been sopping wet on a September night in Minnesota and Sam had been shaking like a leaf by the time they'd got back to the car, so Dean had had to bury them both under a pile of blankets and hold him tightly to warm him up. _Or_ how that had turned into a frenzied lovemaking session, urgent and quick because Dad could come back and catch them at any second...

Dean sucked down a deep, shuddering breath. Sam didn't seem to notice, and Dean wasn't sure if that was a relief or a crushing disappointment.

"No, probably not," Sam agreed quietly, and it took Dean a second to realize that he was talking about the curse thing.

They had a job. He'd have to do his best to nut up and stow his broken heart for the time being; otherwise, he might wind up getting them both killed.

"Guess there's not much else to do but go take a look at it, then," Dean said, clearing his throat. He dug his keys out of his pocket, jabbed them into the ignition, and twisted to wake the engine up, which was something he should've done before now. The familiar sexy purr of the Impala made him feel just the tiniest bit better, because at least one thing around here still acted the way it was supposed to. "Where is this river?"

"It comes outta Sylvan Lake - not too far away. The Crab River. There should be signs."

Dean didn't pull out quite yet. Instead, he steeled himself and looked over at Sam. He was just sitting there, head a little bowed and hands resting on top of his computer, which was settled in his lap. It didn't look like it would kill him to give Dean directions while he drove, which was how it usually worked.

"You just don't wanna talk to me?" he asked, putting his hands on the wheel and squeezing it.

Sam started to shake his head, then hesitated, then sighed wearily and lifted his hands to rub at his face and hide his eyes. It reminded Dean of what he'd been doing earlier.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I don't - " He cut himself off, then hissed through his teeth and dropped his hands. His eyes were closed, and he shook his head again, following through this time. "I'm not...I can't."

Dean waited for a couple seconds, feeling the thrum of the idling engine in his bones, but Sam didn't elaborate. "You can't what?"

"This is... _hard_ for me, Dean." Sam exhaled explosively, turning away to stare out his window. "I don't know what to do, and I don't think I know how to figure it out, either."

Was this progress? Dean forced himself not to get his hopes up, since it probably wasn't. But just in case it was, he also forced himself to push past the discomfort that he always felt when it came to talking about feelings. "You wanna tell me about it? What's going on, I mean." He shrugged. "Might help."

Sam shook his head. Just the smallest twitch to one side, then the other. Dean wasn't sure if he meant he didn't want to talk about it, or that doing that wouldn't help.

"Then," Dean started, the words, unstoppable, pouring out of his mouth the way they usually did when he said something stupid, "d'you wanna apologize to me for what happened in there?" And for every single other shot he'd taken lately, at how much Dean drank and his sex life and how he'd always reacted when Dad gave them orders.

There wasn't any reaction all from Sam, this time. He didn't say anything - he didn't even shake his head again. And that told Dean all he needed to know. He threw the car into drive, pulled out, and headed for the road, spinning the wheel with fast, jerky movements to try and cover up the fact that it felt like he'd been stabbed.

They had bad luck in libraries, he thought to himself, trying to find it funny. They'd fought in one back in Nevada, too. When they'd been on the demon case.

* * *

"This was gonna be part of the construction site," Sam said all of a sudden. "You can let me out here - I'll take a look around."

Dean glanced at him, bringing the Impala to a stop (which didn't take long, thanks to the crawl that he'd been forced to travel at) on reflex. Almost forty-five minutes with Sam not saying a word or even acknowledging that the car wasn't driving itself, and now he spoke up. To get away from Dean. Yeah, that sounded about right.

"Okay," he agreed. Even though there wasn't a good reason to investigate a cluster of idle construction equipment out in the woods, miles from the river. He just didn't want to start another fight. Or make Sam shrink away from him, depending on what mood he was in right now. "Call me if you find anything."

"Yeah." Sam opened the door and stepped out into the light drizzle, which immediately started flattening the waves of his dark hair. Dean caught a glimpse of his face as he turned to shut the car door; he had a tic in one of his cheeks. He'd been getting a lot of those lately. He probably hadn't been sleeping well. Not that Dean knew anything about Sam's sleep habits, since they'd gotten separate rooms this time and all, but _he_ definitely hadn't been getting eight solid hours lately.

He sat for a second, watching Sam wander off into the "construction site," which was really just a bunch of machines that somebody had hauled out here before the guy in charge of the project had drowned in bed and nobody had bothered to come back to get since. Sam didn't seem to mind the rain. Maybe he'd gotten used to it - it rained practically every other hour here. It _was_ Washington in the fall.

Dean faced forward again and toed the gas, sending his baby creeping forward. He wished that Sam had found them a case in Arizona or New Mexico instead of this place, because he hated the rain. And he hated this road. Crumbling, covered in mud and water, more pothole than asphalt - he couldn't go over fifteen miles an hour unless he wanted to wreck his suspension, and that almost chafed at him more than Sam did.

Almost.

By the time he reached the river, the drizzle had become an honest-to-god rainstorm. Dean thought about going back to where he'd left Sam to give him a coat, but his phone had stayed completely silent in his pocket the whole drive. And even though he knew that it was immature as hell, part of him didn't want to give Sam any help until he called him and asked for it.

Dean parked in a patch of muddy gravel that he guessed served as a parking lot. There weren't any trees growing in it, at least. He shrugged out of his leather jacket before opening the door; it'd been just fine for the nip in the air this morning, but now, the rain would ruin it. He kinda wished he'd just kept it on anyway, though, when he slid out of the car and the first few ice-cold drops hit his scalp and shoulders.

"Jesus," he muttered under his breath as he picked his way through the gravel and the puddles, over to the bank of the river. "Just had to find a lead that'd make me as miserable as possible, didn't you, Sammy?"

It felt good calling him that. Even though he wasn't anywhere close enough to hear it.

The riverbank wasn't so much a bank as it was a jumble of slick, mossy rocks. Dean didn't trust them at all in his boots, and he didn't feel like taking a swim today, so he just stayed back under the trees. At least they offered a little bit of protection from the rain. He stood there, hands stuffed in his pockets to keep them warm, staring at the dimples that the rain was making on the surface of the slow-moving river, for at least five minutes before he realized he didn't have any idea what he was looking for.

Dean rolled his eyes. But really, with the way that his day was going, this was about par for the course. He was gonna go back to the car, sit in it with the heat turned all the way up, and wait for Sam to call him to come pick him up.

Before he could turn away, though, he saw something. So he stayed put for a second, leaning forward and squinting. There was something moving out in the river. Definitely not a fish - maybe a deer. Did deer wade? He didn't think so. He kept staring until, all of a sudden, it resolved itself, then coughed and automatically turned away for a second. Because he'd been looking at a girl. A _naked_ girl.

He turned to look at her again, though. Because he had to - one of the basic tenets of hunting was that anything out of the ordinary that popped up during the course of the case had to be investigated. It definitely wasn't because Sam's craziness had left him desperately lonely and he hadn't seen a woman in the nude for way too long.

Her back was to him, and her loose hair, wet and heavy with rain, was long enough to reach to just above her ass. It was the same gray-brown color as the river water that she was standing in, but going by her shape and how smooth her pale skin looked, she was still pretty young. The water only came midway up her calves, so she must've found a rock or something, because Dean had been sure that the river was deeper than that. She had her arms spread and her head tipped back, like she was drinking in the rainstorm.

Dean cleared his throat. Of course, she didn't move. She was too far away to hear a sound that small.

"Hey," he called, taking a step forward. He didn't want to startle her, or make her think that he was some kind of pervert, but he had to talk to her. It wasn't exactly normal to splash around in your birthday suit in a cold river when it was pouring rain - maybe she knew something. What, though, he had no idea.

Looked like startling her couldn't've been avoided. At the sound of Dean's voice, she whipped around to stare at him. He couldn't make out much detail from this distance, but he could still tell that she was just as shapely from the front as she was the back - and she had a pretty face, too, even though he wasn't really focusing on it.

They stared at each other for a second. Then she let out a low cry that Dean could barely hear, covered her chest with her arms, and hunched over to hide everything else from view. And then she dove into the river. It was a smooth, natural-looking movement, and barely made a ripple on the surface of the water besides what the rain was already causing. Actually, it was kinda like she disappeared, once she was under.

Which was a little worrisome, actually. Dean took a few more steps forward, putting himself back out in the rain, and scanned the section of river that he could see. The water was muddy (he wasn't sure if that was from the storm or if it was just always like that), but he still thought that he should've been able to see her. Her pale body should have stuck out like a sore thumb.

Dean couldn't see her anywhere, though. And no way could she have swum out of sight that quick.

For a second, he thought about taking off his shoes and jeans and jumping in, because she might've hit her head on a rock and floated down to the bottom, where he couldn't pick her out. But he wasn't what anyone would call a strong swimmer - he'd probably end up drowning, too, if he tried that. And she had seemed to know what she was doing when she jumped in.

Dean stood there, watching, for a few more minutes, but she didn't pop up. By then, he was soaked to the skin and starting to shiver, so he called it quits and waded back to the car - because all the little puddles seemed to have run together into one big puddle while he was gone. He got a couple of ratty towels out of the Impala's trunk before he climbed into it, not wanting to ruin the seats.

In Dean's experience, things that just up and vanished generally weren't humans. Or generally weren't normal humans, at least. Which meant that he might've just found their monster; that made him feel good.

About the case, at least.


	28. Chapter Twenty-eight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really hate typing up the Sam/Lucy chapters - so many italics.
> 
> And confusing gender pronouns.

Lucy let Sam feel the rain on his skin when she walked his body away from the car and out into the middle of the abandoned construction site. After almost a week of practically floating in a sensory deprivation tank, with access only to his eyes and ears so he could watch the demon torturing Dean, the sensation of cold water hitting his face just about made him moan. Actually, it probably would have, if his vocal cords had still been responding to his emotions.

Sam couldn't hold back a surge of pathetic gratitude, at having his skin temporarily given back to him. It reminded him of stories he'd read about prisoners in POW camps thinking that their wardens were great people because they gave them just enough scraps of food to keep them from starving to death after beating them and throwing them in tiny cells. Except he thought that his situation might be worse, since _his_ captor knew everything he felt. No matter how hard he tried to hide it.

_You like that?_ Lucy cooed on cue, as if she could read his thoughts - which, Jesus, why was he kidding himself? Of course she could. _That feel good?_

_Don't do me any favors,_ Sam thought back acidly. He heard Lucy chuckle, and then one of the smoky tendrils of her blackened soul brushed affectionately against his own. He should probably be getting used to how it felt, considering how long she'd been holding him in place and forcing him to bear witness, but her touch made him just as sick now as it had the first time.

_But why shouldn't I?_ She moved his legs, making him wander through the silent equipment and the trees that it'd been parked between. The rain was starting to pick up now, and it still felt devastatingly good. _You're my host, Sammy. My precious vessel. I want to treat you right - and you've been doing_ so _good in your training lately. I figured you deserved a reward. You like the rain, don't you?_

Earlier, back when he'd first been possessed (and how depressing was it that it'd been long enough that he had to think in those terms now?), Sam would've snapped at Lucy for calling him "Sammy" - because that was Dean's special name for him, and no one else got to use it. Lashing out at her for that would be a waste of energy and willpower, though, and he needed every drop of those he could get to keep fighting.

_Y'know, I really prefer the desert states,_ Lucy murmured when Sam didn't say anything, using his hand to touch the vibrant green moss growing on a nearby tree trunk.

_Why're we out here?_ Sam asked her. During their time together (calling it that made him gag mentally), he'd learned that waiting for Lucy to explain what she was going to do to him was never a good idea. _Why didn't we go with Dean? You seem to be having a great time, screwing with his head like you are._

_Oh, I am,_ Lucy confirmed. The happiness in her voice made Sam think about shuddering - he couldn't actually do it, since he wasn't corporeal. _Did you see the way he had his head in his hands when we came out to the car? But I really don't want to get outed just yet. Not when we're having so much fun. So I can't go to the river._

Sam didn't want to rise to the bait. He didn't trust her trying to engage him in conversation. But his curiosity, which somehow hadn't dimmed at all during this whole ordeal, wouldn't let him stay quiet.

_What are you talking about?_

The emotional broadcast went both ways. When Lucy wanted it to, at least, since she was the one in charge here. So Sam could feel her satisfaction at his question.

_I know what you're hunting,_ Lucy replied. _Or what your brother's hunting. That's more accurate; you've really just been dead weight on this case, haven't you, Sam?_

_So what is it?_ Sam asked, thoughts cool and clipped, not giving her the reaction he knew she wanted.

_Ah, ah, ah, Sam,_ Lucy chided. _You can't really think I'd tell you that for_ free.

At least she didn't do the whole "quid pro quo, Clarice" thing with him. Sam happened to like that movie (and the book, which he was quietly proud to have read before the movie ever came out), and he didn't want to have to add it to the long, long list of things that Lucy had completely ruined for him.

_Like I'd be able to do anything with it,_ Sam said. He was almost but not quite able to resist adding, _You bitch. And what does that have to do with you getting "outed," anyway?_

_I've been called so much worse,_ Lucy told him. Despite her unimpressed tone, though, she poked him, which Sam knew was a punishment. _It could see me. Inside of you. I don't want to take the risk of it cluing your idiot brother into the fact that something's not quite right with his fucktoy._

Sam seethed, and knew that Lucy could feel it. Dean wasn't stupid - far from it. Poor education and self-esteem issues hid it most of the time, but every once in awhile, Sam got to see a flash of savant-level intelligence from him. Dean had a near-photographic memory (like Sam did; maybe it was genetic), problem-solving skills to rival those of a national chess champion, and an incredible way with people when it came to reading and manipulating them.

The thing, though, was that he didn't see it, and had never believed Sam when he pointed it out to him. He'd been told he was dumb by too many people, he believed it, and it was one of the few chinks in the rock-solid armor that he'd built up for himself over the years.

So of course Lucy had spotted it right away and started taking merciless advantage of it. Like it wasn't bad enough that she was ruining his relationship with Sam.

_So what do you want me to do?_ Sam asked, changing the subject back before he said anything that Lucy could use against him. _Sit through another one of those doctored memories of yours?_

He did his best to keep the thought filled with disdain and nothing else, but the truth was that Lucy had been doing a better job of getting to him since that first one that she'd thrown him into. She improved with every memory that she tampered with: her changes got more sophisticated, her touch got lighter. She trotted out situations that she seemed to know would pierce him to the core, even if just for a second. And she did know. She was in his brain; she could rifle through his worst fears and deepest insecurities like a comic book.

Sam, maybe twelve or thirteen, had been sat down by his father, who had found out about him and Dean and told him in harsh terms how worthless he was, how disappointed in him he was, and how little he wanted to see him again - not to mention how little he cared where he went. Sam had crawled into Dean's lap, horny and lonely and wanting attention, only to be shoved away before Dean awkwardly explained that Sam couldn't give him what he wanted - had never been able to, actually, and now he had a girlfriend, and he'd really prefer Sam to just keep his distance from now on. Sam had sat in an uncomfortable chair across from one of his high school guidance counselors, who'd bluntly told him that his grades were terrible and he had no real talents outside of physical violence, so his best bet was to carry on with the family business. But his brother was being fast-tracked into a work-study program and taken away from him.

Lucy usually put him through those at night, in the privacy of the motel room. Sam assumed that that was so that Dean wouldn't see his body lying in a catatonic state while his soul jumped through the hoops that the demon had set up for him. But they had plenty of privacy here, and who knew when Dean would be back?

_Maybe later,_ Lucy said dismissively, and Sam imagined her waving one of her skeletal, talon-like hands. _I_ do _think they're helping you, Sammy. And I have a few new ones waiting in the wings. But the memories are getting a little monotonous, don't you think? We should break it up._

_No,_ Sam blurted. The altered memories were agony, but they were the devil he knew. So to speak.

Lucy laughed. And then she let go of him, retracting her tendrils. Sam was floating free, still attached to his eyes and ears only because he'd been that way for so long.

_Catch,_ Lucy said. Before Sam could ask her just what the hell she meant by that, the knees of his body buckled.

His reaction was instantaneous and didn't require any actual effort on his part. He expanded inside of himself and slotted back into place. It wasn't quite like it'd been before - he could still feel that he wasn't the only one in here. It was like being a copilot and grabbing the controls on his panel after the main pilot took her hands off the wheel and kicked her feet up onto the dashboard. He was steering, but in the back of his mind, he was painfully aware of the fact that she could take over again any time she wanted to.

Sam caught himself. He tightened the muscles of his legs and reached a hand out to the nearest tree for balance, grabbing a thin branch. He straightened up. And it felt incredible, calling the shots in the body he'd been born in once again. He almost whimpered, which would've made Dean call him either gay or a bitch if he'd been there.

_Dean._ Adrenaline exploded into Sam's bloodstream as his heartbeat rocketed up to a speed that had to be unhealthy in his chest. He had control, but he didn't know for how long. He had to warn Dean. He had to tell him. And then Dean would save him.

Sam yanked his hand off the branch, barely registering the feel of pine sap on his fingers or the icy rain dripping off his soaked hair and running down his pine, or the cold creeping into his bones, or the smell of mud in the air - there were just too goddamn many things to _notice_. It felt like it took him just about forever to pick out the one he needed: a hard, familiar shape pressing into his upper thigh, because his cell phone was in his pocket. He got his fingertips, going numb with the chill, on it, and pulled it part of the way out with a jerk of his wrist. He had to hurry, he had to fucking hurry, because Lucy had to know what he was trying to do -

She did. Between one second and the next, the control was gone, and Sam was tiny inside his own head again.

_Bad Sammy_ , Lucy scolded, her tone high-pitched and cutesy. Like she was talking to a little kid, or a pet that'd just had an accident on the carpet. _You're not playing by the rules of the game! Should I give you another chance?_

Sam thought he might've screamed at her. What he was feeling right now didn't translate well into coherent thoughts. It made his focus jerky and liable to bounce around, too.

_Oh, you're just too cute to say no to!_ Lucy exclaimed. That voice was just grotesque, coming from her. She used his hand to tuck his phone snugly back into his pocket before singing, _Catch again!_

She didn't just let him drop this time - she threw him at the tree he'd grabbed onto before. Bent his long legs and used the strong muscles in them to make him launch himself at the rough bark and spiny branches, face-first, as hard as he could. Then she tossed him the reins again.

He barely managed to stop himself before his face hit the trunk, grabbing the branches on reflex. They scraped his palms, making them sting where shallow gashes had been ripped in his skin, but it was better than breaking his nose and, probably, knocking out some of his teeth.

Breathing hard, Sam straightened up and let go, stumbling out from under the tree and back into the rain. Walking didn't come as naturally as it should have. It was probably because he was out of practice; his legs felt clumsy and alien, and he couldn't quite figure out how to keep them straight. He could move, though. And if Lucy had a "rule" about using his cell phone to call Dean, then he'd just have to try to reach his brother another way.

Sam took off running. It was jerky and awkward an nowhere near as fast as he wanted it to be - as it should have been, considering how much practice he had and how fit he was. Honestly, he was afraid that he'd hurt himself if he kept it up. But he had to, because he was actually making progress, and going deeper into the woods. Towards the river, where Dean might be by now. Sam sucked in a deep breath. Sound traveled in the forest, and Dean would have to hear him yell, even if only faintly. Lucy would be back in control by the time he made it here, but she'd have a hell of a time explaining it away. Maybe dean would start to get suspicious.

Maybe he'd decide to test him. Maybe he'd throw salt on him, or holy water, or he'd touch iron to him. And Lucy wouldn't be able to help her reaction, which would make Dean realize exactly what was going on, and then he'd exorcise her and Sam would be okay.

He knew it wasn't all that likely. But he had to stay positive. Especially when Lucy ripped the rug out from under him before he could get so much as one syllable yelled out - almost literally. She shoved him aside once again and then made his body go completely limp, so that he went hurtling to the ground in a boneless tangle. She let him feel all of it, though. The sharp rock poking up through the pine litter that his kneecap glanced off of, the horrible chill of the dirt, the air that the impact forced painfully out of his lungs.

_Did I break the rules again?_ Sam demanded angrily before he realized that he was making a mistake. He shouldn't have even acknowledged her fantasy that they were playing some kind of game.

_Oh, no, I guess not,_ Lucy replied, a shrug practically audible in her voice. She picked him up off of the ground and dusted the pine needles and dirt off his clothes. _I'm just an incredibly sore loser. That's why I'm so_ glad _you want to play with me._

_We're not_ playing, _and if I had any kinda choice here, I'd kill myself before I had anything to do with you,_ Sam replied. His thought-voice came out sounding like he was grinding rocks together in his mind, which was just fine with him.

_Was it your brother's abuse that made you so eager to hurt others?_ Lucy asked condescendingly.

Sam ignored her this time, and stomped everything that the question made him feel into emotional paste before she could feed off of it. He took stock of his body to distract himself, to make sure he hadn't gotten hurt from the spill that Lucy had made him take. She let him.

His kneecap was pretty sore, but the bone was okay, and the heavy denim of his jeans had saved him from a cut. It was probably just bruised. He'd scraped his chin, but it was so shallow he doubted Dean would even notice it. Nothing was broken, nothing was bleeding. He _was_ starting to shiver, though. He was really wet from the rain, the air was cold, and his body temperature had to be dropping like crazy.

_Are you gonna let me get hypothermia?_ Sam asked Lucy. _Is that your next step in this big plan you've got to torture me?_

He knew she wouldn't kill him with exposure - just make him as uncomfortable as she possibly could, since she'd told him more than once that her ultimate goal was to break him. That did bring up an interesting question, though. What would happen to him if he died while he was possessed? Would he get pushed out of his body and go on to...whatever came after, leaving Lucy all alone in here? Would she be forced out, too? Or would they both stay in here, him trapped, with the only difference being that his heart wasn't beating anymore?

Well, Dean would definitely notice if Sam started rotting. An exorcism wouldn't do him any good by then, though. And he knew next to nothing about all the effects that demonic possession had on the body - maybe Lucy's presence would stop him from decaying.

_You won't get hypothermia,_ Lucy assured him. Sam was actually glad to have his thoughts interrupted; what he'd been dwelling on couldn't exactly be called "cheery." _I'll keep you warm. The place where I was born is just_ sweltering _, and every demon brings some of that back up to the surface with them._

Clearly, she was warm enough to stop him from freezing to death, but not enough to stop him from really feeling the cold. Sam withdrew inside of himself, breaking his connections to all the nerves he'd been attached to. He didn't want to feel himself shiver.

Turned out that he didn't have a choice, though. He'd barely been floating in the blackness for a few seconds (he thought. His internal clock had never been awesome, and he was sure that it was even worse when he couldn't see or feel) when Lucy sang out, _Don't you want to keep playing, Sam? I'm having so much fun!_ Then he was back in charge yet again, and feeling the rain and the cold.

Lucy screwed with Sam like that for at least half an hour, giving him his body back and then taking over again right before he could do anything that might save him. He thought about sitting down or just standing completely still, refusing to play her stupid game, but he just couldn't do that. If there was even a chance of getting out of this, of her reacting just a second too slowly and letting him get a message to Dean...well, he had to try.

So he gave running another shot, one time. He tried to murmur out the Latin speech that he'd gotten rid of Lucy with last time, even though he was pretty sure that performing an exorcism on yourself wasn't a thing that you could do. He dropped to his knees and used his fingers to draw a lopsided (and ultimately unfinished) circle in the pine litter, because circles were important barriers in all kinds of cultures and they'd trapped Lucy in a circle of salt back in Nevada. The last time, in sheer desperation, he dug his jackknife out of his pocket, pulled it open with numb hands, and tried to carve "DEMON" into his left forearm. As a clue for Dean, since nothing else had gotten his attention and wounds like that would be hard for Lucy to hide.

None of it worked, though. Of course it didn't. Lucy always stopped him at exactly the right time, before he could do anything real, and Sam started to realize that she was never going to slip up and react a second too late. Of course, by then, she'd just about worn him out, and was laughing wildly from watching him try so hard. She must've had her fill of the game, too, because she took control back, for good this time, to put his knife back in the pocket of his jeans and pulling the sleeve of his shirt down. She left Sam attached to his eyes, though, making him stay there. Probably so she could feel him cry.

Sam had learned at a very early age that boys, and especially men, didn't cry. He was pretty sure that his father would have drummed that into him even if he hadn't raised he and Dean as hunters, because John had been extremely masculine. It wasn't a surprise, with an ex-Marine mechanic who'd grown up in the late fifties. Sam had hidden it when he cried as a little kid, choked back his tears as a teenager, and just...very rarely cried as an adult. It was a really deep behavior for him.

Right now, though...he just couldn't help it. He was possessed, his only chance for rescue was too oblivious to tell what was wrong with him, and the demon had just spent way too long jerking him around like a yo-yo. By waving freedom in his face and then snatching it away from him before he could do anything with it. Over and over and over.

Sam was tired. He missed Dean so much it hurt, partly because he was _right there_ most of the time and he couldn't even talk to him. And he was sure that he was sick, because if he hadn't had some kind of psychosis before (what with hearing his dad's disapproving voice every time he got too close to Dean), he definitely did now, with everything that Lucy had put him through. So he was crying.

Lucy's laughter petered out, after a while. Sam didn't even realize that she was still doing it until she stopped. He'd managed to put an end to his crying, too, and had just been floating in the space behind his eyes for the past few minutes, quiet and numb as he stared out at the rainy forest without really seeing it.

_Oh, thank you, Sam,_ Lucy said warmly. She pressed in close around him, and Sam wished that he had something he could wrap himself in to keep her from touching the bare essence of his soul. _I haven't laughed like that in...gee, decades, probably. You missed your calling. You got your degree in..._ Sam heard, or maybe felt or sensed, something that was almost like a dry rustling. With a wave of revulsion, he realized that Lucy had dipped a tendril into his brain and was sorting through his thoughts and memories - that was what the rustling was. _...Criminal Justice. Pre-law, then. What a waste. You could've been an_ amazing _clown._

Sam twitched involuntarily. It was a reaction that he really wished he could've controlled, because of course it didn't go under Lucy's radar. The delighted little giggle that came from her let him know that she'd noticed.

_Ooh,_ she said. _I think someone's got a phobia._ The way she sounded made Sam imagine the withered, scarred thing that he knew Lucy was acting girlish. Twirling her wrists, swaying her hips, batting eyelashes he doubted she actually had...yeah, it wasn't a pleasant image. _I'll just file that away for later._

Sam didn't say anything. The last thing he wanted right now was to get into another conversation with the demon who'd taken over his body - it hadn't ended well for him lately. All of a sudden, she stopped pushing him up against his eyes, and his sight went dark as he drifted free. Lucy started talking again, and it wasn't like he could just choose not to listen.

_Now, you did give me something,_ she told him. _You entertained me, and you just did a great job of it, too. So I guess I'd better tell you what your monster is._

Sam instantly started paying attention. The chances that he'd be able to get this information to Dean were slim to none, so him finding out wouldn't do a whole lot of good. But still. Sam had firmly believed that knowledge was power since he'd learned how to read, and not even this situation could change his opinion now.

_It's a naiad,_ Lucy said.

_Like...a river spirit?_ Sam asked reluctantly. He'd taken a Mythology course at Stanford, and the first semester had been predominantly Greco-Roman. Naiads were Greek, he remembered. Water nymphs.

_Exactly,_ Lucy agreed. _You are the smarter brother, aren't you? Yeah, a river spirit. They're always female, and their lives are tied to whatever body of water they happen to live in. They can't travel too far from it without getting sick - weak. They dry up, basically. The water rejuvenates them. If it gets too polluted, they get sick and die. If it dries up, they die. If some genius decides to fill it in and build on it -_

_Oh my god,_ Sam interrupted. _The developer. He drowned - his house was full of river water._

_He had it coming, if you ask me,_ Lucy said. As much as Sam hated agreeing with anything she thought, he kind of felt the same way. This naiad had killed the owner of the construction company (actually, his entire household) before he could kill her, defending herself in what was probably the only way she knew. _She'll be weak after doing something so big so far away from her river. Or she was - she should be back to full power after all this._ Sam felt Lucy wave one of his hands. Maybe indicating the rainstorm.

_Because it'll swell her river?_ he guessed.

_No lone likes a know-it-all, Sammy,_ Lucy chided. _Your brother's down there now, isn't he? You'd better hope he doesn't do anything to offend her. She's probably in a fragile state after killing three people; it wouldn't surprise me if he pissed in her water and she decided to drown him for it._

Raw fear for his brother welled up in Sam before he could forcibly convince himself that Dean probably wouldn't do anything that stupid. He knew Lucy had tasted it: the smoke around him had somehow taken on a smug quality.

_We've never run into a naiad before,_ Sam thought to himself. Lucy must have heard it, though, because she replied. Eavesdropping bitch.

_I'm not surprised. Most nature spirits have a long-standing habit of keeping to themselves. They don't need to give you any extra incentive to cut down their trees or burn their flowers or dam up their springs._

Sam had to admit that she made a good point there. He turned his focus inwards, trying to dredge up everything he'd learned about naiads and nymphs in Mythology. Unfortunately, it wasn't a lot. They'd really centered more on the major gods and heroes than all the inconsequential deities and creatures - like satyrs, and centaurs, and Furies, and nereids, and harpies. Naiads fell in that category.

Well, he knew that they were all women, like Lucy had said. And since they were nature spirits, they were probably associated with Artemis, the goddess of the wilderness. In fact, yeah, he remembered reading in the class's textbook that she had naiads in her band of huntresses. So that meant that they were probably modest and chaste. Virgins and planning to stay that way.

Sam decided not to think too hard about whether or not naiads being real meant that the Greek gods were real. Or all the other gods from all the other cultures around the world - that was getting just a little too heavy for him. And he guessed that Lucy could have been lying about what flooded that house and murdered those people, but he didn't think so. It fit.

It was more than a little discouraging, also. The naiad had killed to defend herself already, so she'd overcome that barrier, and the fate of her river was uncertain, even with the developer dead. After all, if he'd wanted to build on it, other people might, too. There was nothing to stop her from flooding more houses the next time she felt threatened. The simplest solution was to put her down, like a dog that'd started biting, but Sam didn't feel great about dumping bleach or something into a river. Not even to save lives.

Out of the blue, something occurred to him, cutting into his thoughts. It was a decent distraction from worrying about how they were going to fix this, so he took it.

_How do you know this?_ he asked Lucy.

_I'm a demon, Sam,_ she replied. For a second, he thought that that was going to be her answer, obnoxious and vague. But then she continued. _And I've been around for a long time. You pick things up, in Hell, up here. And most of us - the smart ones, at least - make it a habit to know about all the things that can see us when we're wearing somebody's meat. Ghosts...spirits of all kinds, actually. Most anything that isn't human, like dogs and ghouls and other monsters. And people who are dying, like terminal patients and dealmakers whose time is up._

_That's...really interesting, actually,_ Sam admitted, wishing he had something to take notes on. That was the one and only silver lining to this very big and very dark cloud: he was learning a lot about demons and possession. _I didn't know any of that._

_Of course not. You've never interviewed one of us before you sent them howling back to the pit,_ Lucy replied. _But really, Sam, if there's anything you want to know about me and my kind, just_ ask. _I want us to be super good friends, and friends know_ everything _about each other._

And that pretty much guaranteed that Sam wasn't going to ask her anything until his curiosity completely overpowered him again. He hovered in the blackness of his body, knowing that Lucy could feel the waves of disgust and loathing coming off of him and glad for it.

_If you're curious about anything right now, though, it'll have to wait,_ Lucy told him abruptly. _I can hear your brother coming back for us, and I can't field stupid questions from both of you at the same time._

Sam wasn't using his ears at the moment, so he couldn't hear the growl of the Impala's engine as it approached. He wasn't tapped into any of his senses right then, actually, and he would rather stay that way. He'd just about had his fill of watching what Lucy did to Dean.

He should've known better than to think that she would let him opt out. She grabbed him, clearly ignoring the way that he squirmed, and tucked him neatly up against his eyes and ears.

Sam saw the trees again, and the construction equipment. He heard the rain, coming down harder than it had been the last time he'd been looking out, hitting the needles of the pines and the ground and the metal of the machines. He heard the car's engine, too, which was what Lucy was currently walking towards. Soon, he could see it through the moss-covered tree trunks, glossy black and beaded with water.

"Oh my god," Dean said when Lucy pulled the passenger side door open. He was sitting in the driver's seat, of course, on a few faded, holey towels, and when he saw Sam, he leaned down to pull a bundle of even more towels out of the footwell. "You're _drenched_." Dean was wet, too, Sam noted, which made sense if he'd been looking around down at the river, but nowhere near as soaked as he'd gotten. "How the hell'd that happen? And look - you're shivering. Not surprised. You must be freezing."

"It was just the rain," Lucy muttered with Sam's voice, taking the towels from Dean and being careful not to let their hands touch. She spread a couple of them on the seat before climbing into the car, then started using the rest to dry Sam off.

"Are you stupid?" Dean demanded. He wasn't even trying to cover up how on-edge he was - that was Lucy's doing. "Completely stressed out" was starting to become his normal state. "How come you didn't take a coat with you? Or stay under the trees?"

"This isn't really your problem," Lucy replied, keeping Sam's eyes aimed away from Dean. "Can we just go back to the motel?"

The car started to creep forward as Dean tapped the gas. There was silence for about a minute, with the only sounds being the engine and the noise that Lucy was making by scrubbing the rainwater out of Sam's hair with a towel. Then Dean spoke up.

"You sure you can make it back to the motel?" he asked. "It's a long drive, and I can feel you shivering. You're shaking the seat." Lucy straightened up, and Sam saw, out of the corner of his eye, that Dean was looking at him. Them. Whatever. "Jesus. Your lips are blue. You gotta warm up before we get back to town, Samm - Sam."

Lucy tensed Sam's shoulders up, making it look like he was reacting negatively to the nickname that Dean hadn't quite said. She pulled the towel down, holding the damp terrycloth on Sam's lap with white-knuckled hands. "So turn the heater on."

"It _is_ on," Dean replied. "It's all the way up. Can't you feel it?" Lucy didn't answer, but Sam, who'd been allowed to tap into certain parts of his body, realized that he actually couldn't feel it. Maybe he was actually in trouble here. "Look, just go ahead and dry yourself off as much as you can. And then I think you should..." Dean apparently lost his nerve, trailing off and swallowing hard. "I think you should move closer to me."

"No," Lucy said immediately. Sam wondered if this was really all about warming him up, or if Dean was making a desperate effort to get him back. To touch him. Since Sam really, _really_ wanted to be touched by Dean right now, he was fine with either reason.

"I'm not asking you to hop in bed with me," Dean said. He was staring straight ahead, eyes fixed on the road, and gripping the steering wheel so tight that it was probably digging grooves into his palms. "Just sit next to me. I'm a lot hotter than you are right now; might help you stop shivering."

"No," Lucy repeated, making her tone firmer this time and letting a little harshness bleed into Sam's voice.

"Stop being stubborn, Sam," Dean said in a flat voice, still looking at the road. Of course, Lucy wasn't looking at him, either, so Sam could just barely tell what his brother was doing.

"I'm not," Lucy replied, gritting Sam's teeth.

"Yeah, you _are_." Dean finally looked at him - glared, actually, clearly frustrated. "I mean, look at you, you're - "

He'd reached out a hand. Sam wasn't sure what part of him he'd meant to touch. Maybe his hair, maybe his face. It didn't really matter, because Lucy shut Dean up and stopped him in his tracks by throwing Sam's body against the car door and yelling, _"Don't touch me!"_

The car jerked and swerved. They might've hit a pothole, or maybe Dean had just done something unintentional with the wheel when he flinched away from Sam. Either way, he slowed down and got them back under control.

The three of them stared at each other. Dean in one body, Sam and Lucy in the other. For Sam, the raw pain and guilt that he could read in Dean's face was more agonizing than any fake memory Lucy could put him through, because there wasn't a single thing he could do about it. He just had to watch.

Lucy did something to his tear ducts, then; stimulated them somehow, and made his eyes fill with water. It really irked Sam, how she was so much better at controlling _his_ body than he was. And how she made him cry.

"I'm sorry," Lucy said, in a pathetic voice that Sam was sure he'd never used and never would. Dean didn't seem to notice how out of character it was, though; his expression didn't waver. Except to soften into one of sympathy. "I don't - jeez, I don't know what's wrong with me."

"We just went too fast," Dean said. The car was still moving, Sam realized suddenly. Dean was guiding it slowly down the rain-slick, hole-filled road with practiced movements of his hands and feet. He was working on autopilot, drawing off of muscle memory so that he could focus on what he thought was his little brother. "Look. I can't pretend to know all of what's going on with you, but something I did must've triggered you."

"I don't know what it was," Lucy said, blinking in order to send the tears rolling out of Sam's eyes. She turned away in order to scrub them off of his cheeks, pulling a deep, shuddering breath in through his nose. Sam couldn't avoid admitting that her manipulation was almost artistic - she was playing Dean like a freaking violin. Every single thing she did with Sam's body was calculated and effective. Like the crying, which would really hit home because both of them did it so rarely. "I don't know how to fix this. I'm sorry."

"I know," Dean assured. "I know. It's okay. I'm not mad, Sam." Sam knew him well enough to tell that he had been mad, earlier, and he was feeling crushingly guilty about it now.

_Cut it out,_ Sam thought at Lucy in a growl. _Just yell at him. That'd be better._

Lucy ignored him, of course. He'd more or less expected her to.

"I just can't have you touching me right now," she said, talking more to Sam's hands, resting in his lap, than to Dean. "I can't have you using that nickname. I can't have you close to me. I just...I _can't_."

"I understand," Dean said. Sam could tell that he didn't, though, and that this was killing him. "We'll go slow. It'll be okay. We'll get things back to normal."

"No." Lucy shook Sam's head and heaved a broken sigh. "Dean...I can't even think about being with you right now. Not even sometime off in the future. It makes me..." She trailed off, putting one of Sam's hands on his stomach. Sam knew that Dean would get exactly what Lucy was leaving unsaid: the idea of having a relationship with Dean at any point in time made Sam sick.

Sam wasn't really sure what state of matter he was in right now - liquid, gas, or some other one that only applied to souls. But whatever he was, what Lucy had just told his brother made him boil. Her smoke tendrils drew back from him slightly, like he was hard to hold onto when he was so angry and hurt he was churning.

Sam caught the slight tremble in Dean's hands as he very purposefully looked away from him and out at the rainy road he was driving down. He also caught the way the blood slowly drained from his face and made his freckles stand out, and the unnatural wideness of his eyes. It was enough to tell Sam that what Lucy had implied had emotionally gutted Dean.

"Okay," Dean repeated, swallowing hard enough to make his Adam's apple bob.

He didn't say anything else on the way back to town, and neither did Lucy.

* * *

Sam was sixteen. He was on his stomach on the bed he'd been sharing with Dean for the past few nights, naked, legs spread wide. Dean was inside of him, fucking him briskly. The part of him that was six years older and aware that this was fake knew that something was wrong, because Dean wasn't talking to him, or touching him, except for when his skin slapped against Sam's ass with every thrust. This wasn't how they'd ever made love.

In the memory, though, Sam was hurt and resigned, because this Dean just used him for sex. He never talked to him, he never touched him, he never cleaned him up after. He never seemed to care whether or not Sam finished, either. And Sam kept letting him do it because he was completely starved for attention - and because he was damaged goods, having lost his virginity to his older brother. No one else would ever want to have sex with him.

Dean came inside of him, all of a sudden, with a loud grunt. Sam closed his eyes as he felt him spill his hot, heavy seed into him. He hadn't been anywhere near climax himself, and now it would never happen.

He waited for Dean to pull out of him as he started to wilt, but that never happened. Instead, the memory froze, and Sam, tangled up in its threads, was teased out of it. The sensations of the motel room faded around him, replaced by the empty black void that was the inside of his body.

_Did you figure out that it wasn't bothering me?_ Sam asked Lucy, because of course she'd been the one to bring it to a halt. He actually was kind of curious as to why she'd interrupted it; she never stopped one of her "masterpieces" until it'd played out to its conclusion.

_Don't play tough, Sam,_ Lucy replied. _Listen._

She opened his ears up to him - and his eyes, too, but he barely noticed those, since it was so dark in the motel room. The shock of being able to hear again after hours spent drowning in stale memories meant that Sam couldn't pick out what he was supposed to be listening for, at first. The ventilation system was humming loudly, water was rattling through the motel's crappy pipes, and the sounds of his own heartbeat and breathing demanded his attention for a couple of seconds. Then he had to get past the buzzing and tapping of a fly that was stubbornly ramming its head against the glass of the window, and the rustling of fabric that his tiniest movement made (Lucy had him laying on the bed), and the silky noises of his hair rubbing against itself.

_Take all the time you need,_ Lucy encouraged. _This isn't nearly as big a deal for me as it's going to be for you._

Well, that just sounded great. Worried now, and able to feel something like excited interest trickling down from Lucy, Sam focused on filtering out all the inconsequential noises. After a few seconds of adjustment, he picked up on what Lucy had wanted him to hear.

The walls between rooms were paper-thin in this place, which was a pretty common problem in dirt-cheap motels. Sam could probably fall right through one if he tripped in the right place. If he was still driving his body, since Lucy seemed to be infinitely less clumsy than he was. It was an utter mystery to him, how she could control a body the size of his so much better than he - the original soul - could. It kinda pissed him off, too. He felt like he'd already thought about this.

Sound traveled easily through the walls. Dean's room was right next to Sam's; that was something he'd stood firm on, despite all of Lucy's sighing and squirming. Sam could hear him coughing. No, choking, actually - and barely getting in enough air to wheeze out curses. There were wet squelching and splashing noises, too, and Sam had no idea what those could be. Then he heard a loud _thud_ , and knew that Dean had either fallen out of bed or collapsed.

To say that what he was hearing terrified Sam didn't come close to describing how he felt. He was awash in the kind of pure, paralyzing animal fear that not even most monsters could make him feel - unless they had his brother. It was so intense that, even though he'd pretty much gotten used to being helpless inside himself, he tried to yell out Dean's name and spring to his feet anyway.

It shocked him when, less than ten seconds after that attempt, Lucy sat him up, swung his feet off the bed, and stood. He'd thought that making him listen to Dean suffocating in the next room would be right up her alley.

_What are you doing?_ Sam asked her, way too much of the panic that he was feeling leaking into his thought-voice.

_Oh, I'm sorry, Sammy,_ Lucy replied with overexaggerated concern. _Do you_ not _want to go and see if we can do something to save your rapist's life? I guess I underestimated you._

_Not a rapist,_ Sam grated out. That was the only reaction he gave Lucy - the only reaction he could afford to give her. _What's wrong with him? What are you going to do?_

_He's drowning,_ Lucy said in a way that suggested she shouldn't've had to explain it. _He must've offended the naiad after all. Sounds like he woke up before she could finish him off, though. Is your De a light sleeper?_

_Oh my god,_ Sam said, then repeated it, because he was too anxious to come up with anything else: _Oh my god._ All he could think of were the bodies Lucy had let him see when he and Dean went to the morgue. Their tortured expressions. The developer with waterweed in his mouth, open to suck in a breath he hadn't been able to get. The silt all over his wife's long, auburn hair. Which she'd tightly braided before bed so that it would be wavy the next morning.

It'd been so horribly, vulnerably _human_ that it'd made Sam heartsick, even after hearing the coroner bluntly state that they hadn't been good people. Thinking about seeing Dean like that, drowned and swollen with river water, gave him the urge to puke and none of the sensations that came with it. Which was unsettling, but par for the course.

_What're you gonna do to help him?_ Sam demanded as Lucy walked towards the door. Why _are you gonna help him? You hate him! You hate_ me!

_I do,_ Lucy agreed. _But if your sexual deviant brother does end up dying, it can't be because some unhinged freshwater mermaid pumped his lungs full of slime from her dirty little river. I want to_ watch _him die, if it has to happen. And I want him to think that you're killing him, because you just can't go on knowing he's in the world. And I want him to believe that his death will completely ruin you despite that._

Sam had known how she felt about them. But the inhuman malice in her voice, oozing off her like toxic waste, still shocked him into silence.

_If he has to die,_ Lucy continued, sounding calmer now. _That's how I want it to happen. Neither of you horny little perverts are getting an easy out._

Sam resolved not to say anything until she reached Dean and helped him. He could still hear him coughing on the other side of the wall; not nearly as much time had passed as it felt like. He broke that resolution, though, when Lucy stopped right in front of the door to kick his boots off and pull his jeans down. She'd put him in warm, dry clothes when they got back to the room, but hadn't bothered to undress him before laying him down earlier, and he couldn't imagine why she was taking the time to do it now.

_What the hell are you doing?_ Sam demanded, struggling not to completely explode. It was no big deal. He had no real reason to be upset. The demon currently wearing him was just slowly removing his pants while his brother was dying in the next room.

_I doubt he'll notice, but don't you think that Dean might be weirded out by you being fully dressed in the middle of the night?_ Lucy asked. She flicked Sam with a tendril of smoke. _Idiot._

Lucy left the room, stepping out into the cold, damp Washington night. Because Sam was only in a T-shirt and boxer briefs now, goosebumps instantly cropped up on his skin. Lucy crossed the yard of wet concrete between the door to Sam's room and the door to Dean's in bare feet, then held his hand over the lock, above the knob. Sam didn't understand what she was doing and was about to yell at her for wasting time again when a barely-perceptible pulse of... _something_ rolled out of Lucy's essence, through the flesh of his palm, and into the lock. The mechanism _click_ ed.

_Are you -_ Sam started. He couldn't believe she'd taken his pants off because Dean might find them suspicious and then used freaking telekinesis to unlock the door to his room.

_I'll tell him I picked it if he asks,_ Lucy replied, taking hold of the knob and turning it. _But I don't think he will. You've been listening, haven't you, Sammy? Don't you think he sounds distracted?_ She pushed open the door and a strong, green smell of living, muddy water rolled out. She hit the switch on the wall next to the door and flooded the little room with light, temporarily blinding Sam.

The first thing Sam saw when his vision cleared was Dean, because of course he was looking for him. His older brother was kneeling on the carpet, one hand on the wall to support himself. His head was bowed and he was wheezing raggedly, with his other arm wrapped tightly around his lower chest. His clothes were soaked through, his hair was matted to his scalp, and water was dripping off of him. A puddle of it surrounded him on the cheap, dirty carpet, and there was another, smaller one directly in front of him. Probably what he'd coughed up. It took him a few seconds after the light came on to look up at Sam and Lucy. His face was wet and he had broken blood vessels in both eyes.

"If this is a curse," he grated out. IT sounded like he'd been gargling with coarse sand. Actually, he had, if there'd been mud and silt in the water. "Then I caught it."

Lucy didn't say anything in response to that, just turned Sam's head so that he could see Dean's bed. The sheets, mattress, and pillows were sodden and streaked with algae. There was a pool of murky water in the shallow dip where Dean was laying. The squelching noises that Sam had heard must have been him moving around in it. A hank of water plant, looking like long, thick blades of brown grass, was draped over the headboard.

"Are you okay?" Lucy asked, making Sam's voice totally devoid of any real concern. She looked back at Dean.

_"No,"_ Dean snapped before retching over the smaller puddle. Nothing came up. He recovered by gulping in air, then continued. "I've got freaking _mud_ in my lungs."

_He's fine,_ Lucy relayed to Sam. _He's breathing, at least, and there isn't anything I can do to help him. Nothing I want to do, anyway. I can't feel the naiad around here, so she probably panicked and ran back to her river when Bad Touch here woke up._

_But she'll come back and try to drown him again,_ Sam said, riding a wave of fear. It wasn't a question.

_Maybe. It depends on what he did to get her bikini bottom in a twist,_ Lucy replied. _If it was minor, she might decide it isn't worth it and leave him alone. But if it was major, she won't back down until he's a floater._

_We have to find out what he did,_ Sam said. He wasn't naive enough to think that Lucy would let him help Dean once he had this information. But once again, knowledge was power. And Sam could measure the amount of power he had right now in a thimble.

_Oh? And what would you be willing to give me in exchange for me asking about it, Sammy?_ Lucy asked. She'd been walking his body around the room while they were talking, touching the wet covers on the bed and inspecting the water. Making it look like he was investigating so that Dean wouldn't see him just standing there, a blank expression on his face, while they talked. _I do think we had this conversation earlier._

_I'll...play whatever "game" you want me to,_ Sam replied. He wanted to spit the words out, but he couldn't without a mouth. It disgusted him to promise something like that, but he didn't really have anything else to trade.

_Good offer,_ Lucy told him. _I suppose I'll go ahead and take it._ Before Sam could think of an appropriately sarcastic response to that, she turned to Dean again. "What happened when you were down at the river? Anything?"

"No. No, I - " Dean, who'd started to shiver slightly in the cool air that was coming in through the door that Lucy had left open, ran a hand over his wet face, then abruptly stopped. "I saw a girl. She was standing in the water - she was naked." He dropped his hand and glanced up at Sam. Lucy looked away. "No idea what she was doing. I tried to talk to her, but she spooked and swam off...I guess."

_Ooh,_ Lucy said, and made a sound like she was sucking her teeth. _He saw her naked. That is_ not _good. Wouldn't be such a big deal if it weren't for his wedding tackle, but nature spirits and deities - especially the female Greek ones, - are insanely modest. A man seeing her unclothed is a big deal._

_Are you saying she's not going to give up?_

_Probably not,_ Lucy confirmed. _They're vengeful. Nymphs and naiads are tied to Artemis, and the last man to see_ her _in the nude turned into a deer and got killed by his own hunting dogs._

_Then how do we help him?_ Sam asked, brushing aside Lucy talking about Artemis like she was real.

_I don't know that there's anything I can do, Sammy._ Sam was shocked by how genuinely regretful Lucy sounded. Then he remembered how excited she'd been about killing Dean with his hands, though, and understood. _I suppose I'll just have to take a step back and focus on how much it's going to hurt you when your brother finally sucks down enough water to drown him. Hey, at least you won't have the temptation to let him plow you anymore, right?_

"I don't know what that could be," Lucy said out loud to Dean, turning towards the door to leave as a tsunami of something right between gut-wrenching horror and fury rocked Sam's tethers to his eyes and ears. It loosened him, and gave him strength.

Sam pulled himself free and darted past Lucy before she could figure out what he was trying to do and react to stop him. He was driven by emotion, and part of him understood that he'd probably never be able to move his soul like this, while he was possessed, again. So he'd have to make the most of it.

He narrowed himself down into what felt like a needle point and _focused_. He had the strength to hit exactly one area of his body, and to wrest control of it back from Lucy. Sam took his mouth. His tongue, and his throat, and the vocal cords inside of it. Lucy was already pulling at him, having realized what his goal was, but he had just enough time to force out two syllables.

"Nai-ad."

It didn't even sound like his voice. Sam was out of practice when it came to talking out loud, just like he'd been out of practice when it came to using his legs earlier today. Or yesterday, actually, he realized. He'd caught sight of the clock while he'd still had his eyes. It was just after one in the morning.

Lucy had yanked him away from his mouth practically the second that he'd gotten the "ad" out, so now he was drifting in the void of what was maybe his upper chest. But not really drifting. Claws made out of her smoke were dug deeply into him, presumably so he wouldn't be able to cause any more trouble. She shouldn't've bothered - he was spent. He couldn't do anything right now but shiver in discomfort.

Sam could tell that she was talking, but of course he couldn't hear what she was saying. He hoped that she wasn't trying to convince Dean that it'd just been a slip of the tongue, and that Sam didn't really think that it was a naiad after him. He also hoped that, even if she was, Dean would look river spirits up anyway. Find a way to appease the one that was trying to kill him. Keep himself alive.

Now Lucy must've finished talking to Dean and left the room, because she was hissing, _You are in a world of hurt, Sammy-boy. Screwing with the natural order of things - I'm going to take this out of your soul. What if your brother poisons the river to save his skeevy ass? Doesn't that just break your bleeding heart?_

She squeezed him, which hurt. But Sam didn't care.

He'd done everything he could to save his brother's life.


	29. Chapter Twenty-nine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hold onto yo' butts - there's finally a breakthrough in this chapter.
> 
> You have been properly warned, even though you haven't been told who has the breakthrough and what it's for.

"What?" Dean squinted at Sam, not quite sure what he'd growled out through what sounded like a mouthful of pea gravel. He thought it might've been something like "nyad" or "naiad," whatever the hell that was. Dean stuck a pinkie finger in one of his ears and realized that the problem might be on his end. His ear canal was full of gritty mud. Not surprising - all his other holes were full of that, too.

"A naiad," Sam repeated in a much more normal voice. Dean still had trouble hearing him, though, because he was facing away. Probably staring longingly out the open door, fantasizing about getting away from him. "Just popped into my head. I took a mythology class my freshman year at Stanford. It seems like it might be a naiad."

"And that is...?" Dean prompted impatiently. He was cold and it hurt to breathe. So he wasn't in the mood for Sam to lord how much smarter he was over him right now.

"I'll show you tomorrow," Sam replied, stepping through the door and turning so that Dean could see half of his face. His profile, it was called - that little bit of trivia swam up from the swamp of Dean's memory. "At the library."

"Wait." Dean slapped both palms against the dingy wall and hauled himself to his feet with a groan, eyes clamping shut. His legs felt weirdly weak. He hoped that that was just because of the cold and not because the oxygen deprivation had messed up his brain when he'd come to with water streaming out of his mouth and nose. "How - how do I protect myself from this thing?" He touched his sore chest and struggled past an urge to cough. "I almost _drowned._ "

"I...don't know," Sam admitted, and he looked so miserable about it that Dean's angry yelling died in his mouth. "Maybe don't go back to sleep? The myths didn't really say anything about warding one off. Maybe it just won't bother you again tonight."

"So stay up and cross my fingers that it keeps its distance," Dean said. He knew Sam was fragile or whatever, but right now, it was sounding more like he just didn't care what happened to him. That was why Dean couldn't keep a little acid from boiling over into his voice. "Thanks, Sam."

He wished he could take it back when Sam flinched, just barely, and looked at him with wounded, plaintive eyes. "I'm sorry, Dean! I really don't know, okay? Why're you mad at me?"

"I'm not." He wasn't, he guessed. He didn't know how he was feeling towards Sam right now. Like he'd said, he'd almost drowned, and he was hurting and weakened and completely freaked out. Dean remembered, out of the blue, holding Sam in Texas when he was stoned on painkillers. After the adlet had torn him up. Dean really would've appreciated getting a little of that back now, but after the way that Sam had reacted to his offer to help him warm up in the car, he knew better than to ask for it. "Sorry. Hasn't been a good night." Dean reached up to rub his face. He kept the other hand on the wall so he didn't fall down. He must have gotten mud in his eyes, too; they stung. "You can go ahead and go back to your room. I'm okay."

"Are you sure?" Dean wanted to hear concern in Sam's voice. But his childhood had made him way too much of a realist, and he couldn't fool himself into finding something that wasn't there. Sam sounded like he was asking out of a sense of duty and nothing else.

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine." Dean waved the hand he'd been using to rub his face at Sam. He could see goosebumps on his bare legs - he had to be freezing out there. "I'm gonna take a hot shower, and I know you don't wanna stick around for that."

If it'd been a week or two ago, Sam would've insisted on staying anyway, not bothered at all by the idea of seeing Dean naked. He might've even offered to join him in the tub. But if it'd been a week or two ago, they would've been sleeping in the same room and the same bed, so the matter of Sam staying wouldn't've even been a question.

Maybe there was an upside, though. If that naiad thing came back tonight, Sam would be in another room, and he wouldn't drown with Dean like that construction guy's wife had drowned with her husband. He'd be okay. So Dean told himself that he should be glad when Sam vigorously shook his head and shut the door.

Dean left the light on. He felt like a five-year-old - a pair of cheap sixty-watts wouldn't scare off the monster that was stalking him for whatever reason (he still didn't understood why that naked girl had it in for him. If it was even her; Sam hadn't said anything about her being the naiad, so maybe she was totally unrelated to this whole disaster). But it made the primitive, idiot part of his brain feel better. Sam probably could've explained that, if he'd been around and in the mood to listen to Dean bitch.

Dean pulled his T-shirt and boxers off, grimacing when they clung to his clammy skin, and tossed them on the bed. Which was probably ruined, with all the nasty water that had soaked into it. Even if it wasn't, he wouldn't be sleeping in it again tonight, and not just because of Sam's half-assed advice. He couldn't think of many things more uncomfortable than wet, gritty sheets.

Dean showered under water as hot as he could stand. It felt good, so he stayed in for what was probably over an hour. Way longer than what it took for him to get rid of all the mud and little plants. He tried to either keep his mind blank or focus on the case the whole time. Much to his relief, it worked. He was tired of wearing a mental groove, thinking about how Sam was acting. And he wasn't gonna be the guy who reminisced about his ex and jerked it every time he got in the shower, so remembering how he'd used to act was out, too.

Once he'd had his fill of the shower, Dean filled the remaining time before the sun came up, Sam emerged from his room, and the library opened with standard, boring routines. He got dressed. He bought a doughnut and coffee from the nearest gas station for a very early breakfast. He shaved, and trimmed his hair back down into its usual brush cut, because it'd been a while since he'd done either and he didn't want the next creature he tangled with to have anything to grab onto.

After all that, he was just waiting on Sam. He would've sat on the hood of the Impala, but not only was it cold enough to make any metal outside roughly the temperature of dry ice, it was also raining again. So Dean stood under the overhang of the motel's roof, out of the bone-numbing drizzle, with his breath steaming in the air and his hands shoved into the pockets of a canvas jacket that couldn't be hurt by water.

"Freakin' Washington," Dean greeted Sam when he finally opened his door, looking clean and spiffy. And also tired. Dean knew how he felt.

Sam didn't even grunt in response to that. He must not be in the mood for small talk, which was fine. Dean was fine.

"There's a bagel and a cappuccino on your seat," Dean told Sam, pulling one hand out of its pocket to gesture to the car. "For breakfast. I'm kinda anxious to get to the library - y'know, so you can show me whatever it is that wants me choking on mud."

"Thanks." Sam hunched his shoulders against the light rain as he walked out into it. He waited for Dean to unlock the car before he pulled his door open, picked up the food, and folded himself into the seat. "That didn't happen again last night, did it?"

"Nah. I stayed dry. Chest still hurts, though." Dean thumped his ribcage with the back of one hand as he slid in behind the wheel. "Probably gonna be coughing for a few days." He just hoped there wasn't still enough water in his lungs to give him pneumonia. It would sure fit in with the whole theme of how shitty things had been going for him lately, though.

"I assume it'll wait for tonight to attack you again," Sam said, staring out his window at the rain as Dean started the car. Dean was surprised that he seemed to be carrying on a normal conversation, but then again, they were just talking about the hunt. Maybe that was okay for Sam while "them" was forbidden. "So we should try to either kill it or get it to back off before sundown."

"We'll only do the backing-off thing if there isn't anything out there we can do to kill it or take away its powers or...seal it up," Dean replied. He turned on the windshield wipers so that he could see to drive; the rain was beading in tiny droplets on the glass, making a fine mist that smudged everything into a blur of green and gray.

"...why?" Sam asked, giving Dean a quizzical glance.

"'Cause that's what we _do_ , Sam - we kill monsters," Dean answered. It was an automatic response - and a speech that'd come straight from Dad. He hoped that Sam didn't pick up on that, because it would probably make him withdraw even more than he already had. "And if we can't kill 'em, we shut 'em down. This thing's dangerous. It's already killed three people, and it tried to kill number four last night." He bit back the angry "Don't you care?" that was building in his throat, not wanting to set himself up to get hurt for about the millionth time.

"I know, I just..." Sam shrugged and trailed off, looking out the window again. "It was self-defense. It lives in the river the first vic was gonna fill in."

Sam sympathizing with their quarry. Dean trying to persuade him that making a kill was the best option. The two of them chatting about it on their way down to the library to do research. Just like old times. It was so normal it made Dean's teeth hurt, and he wanted to hold onto the illusion for as long as he could.

"Look," Dean began, half-raising one hand off the wheel in a gesture of compromise. "Let's just hit the library, and you can show me exactly what we're dealing with. Then we'll find out as much about it as we can and decide what to do from there."

"Okay," Sam agreed. Not quietly, just...normally. Maybe Dean almost dying last night had cooled his crazy a little. "Sounds good."

They were almost to the tiny library when Dean spoke up again. The silence hadn't exactly been comfortable, but it hadn't made him want to crawl out of his own skin, like a lot of their long stretches of quiet had been recently.

"D'you think there'd be anything about naiads in Dad's journal?" Dean asked Sam as he turned into the parking lot. Sam made a face and shrugged.

"Well, I doubt it, but it can't hurt to look," he replied. "You can flip through that while I get my laptop all set up, if you want."

So Dean dug the journal out of all their other supplies in the trunk while Sam went inside with his computer. Dean had become pretty familiar with this thing over the course of their last few hunts, because he'd been pulling it out for every one ever since the ghosts in Nevada had handed it over, so he'd only need to skim through it to make sure Dad hadn't ever tangled with a naiad. For that same reason, Dean was pretty sure he hadn't, but like Sam had said, it couldn't hurt to look.

"Here. Go ahead and read this," Sam said, looking over his shoulder at Dean as he walked towards the table he'd set up at. "This'll tell you everything you need to know about what a naiad is."

"Cool." Without thinking, Dean tossed the journal onto the table and dropped into the chair right next to Sam's, so he could see the screen of his laptop. Predictably, Sam reacted like Dean had slammed a knife into his thigh, trying to scoot away and shoot to his feet at the same time. Which meant that he pretty much stumbled out of his chair and barely managed to keep himself from falling. There went the little bit of normal they'd managed to build up. "Oh. Shit. Sorry."

Dean couldn't muster the strength to really freak out or show how much that had bothered him. He was surprised that Sam had been able to, since he couldn't've gotten much more sleep last night than Dean had. Maybe he just wasn't tired of all of this in the same way that Dean was.

"It - it's okay," Sam said. His tone was a little too bright, and that and the smile that he forced let Dean know that it wasn't okay. He wondered if that'd been intentional. "You go ahead and read." He reached down to turn the laptop towards Dean. "I'm gonna go see if they've got any books on Greek mythology here."

"They're Greek?" Dean called after Sam as he wandered off into the stacks, because that was news to him. Sam didn't answer (he probably just hadn't heard him; Dean was proud of himself for scaling back his paranoia a little there), so he'd better get reading to figure out what else he didn't know about naiads. He made himself comfortable: slid low in the chair, spread his legs so that only the heels of his boots were resting on the library's nubby waterproof carpet, folded his arms over his chest. Then he focused on the screen.

By the time Sam got back with a pile of books that were thick enough to immediately give Dean a headache just from looking at them, he'd read the page that had been pulled up on the laptop screen, and flipped through Dad's disorganized leatherbound journal. He'd learned that naiads were female water spirits, kinda like little goddesses, and that their father hadn't ever written anything down about them.

Or him and Sam, either, actually. He never mentioned the two of them, even when he was writing about hunts that they'd helped him out on. Dean had just barely noticed that during his most recent read-through, and he wondered why it was.

"So," Dean began, looking up at Sam and clearing his throat. "Spirits. Those're kinda like ghosts, right? Which means we can't kill it."

"Her."

"Right. Her. Whatever. They're all girls, you knew what I meant."

Sam ignored him. "Anyway, not necessarily. I wasn't able to find anything about naiads dying..." He opened the book on top of his pile and flipped to a specific page, pointing to something that Dean didn't bother to look at. It would've meant leaning in and, most likely, spooking Sam again. "But this talks about killing dryads by - "

"And what the hell're dryads?" Dean interrupted.

"Tree spirits," Sam replied impatiently. "You can kill them by chopping down the tree they're attached to. So I assume you can kill a naiad by screwing up her river."

"Like filling it in," Dean realized. It really had been self-defense. Sam nodded. "Jesus." Dean let that percolate for a few seconds, then shook his head. "We can't do that, though. Not even with all that construction equipment they left out there. So how else can we do her in?"

"Well, I...I don't know," Sam responded, shrugging helplessly as he gathered up his books again and went to go sit across the table from Dean. "Maybe if we dumped something in there that'd kill all the fish and plants and ruin the water? Like, oil." He flashed a quick grimace. "But I really don't wanna do that."

"Yeah. No. I'm with you there," Dean agreed after he'd thought it over. "Poisoning rivers doesn't exactly make us look like the good guys, does it?"

Sam looked faintly surprised, but Dean wasn't sure what'd done it. He might not know much about ecology or whatever, but he was smart enough to figure out that polluting a wild river to kill a monster would probably do enough overall damage to outweigh the lives it'd save. Unfortunately, Dean didn't have a better idea, and it didn't look like Sam did, either.

After about a minute had passed with neither of them saying anything, Dean cleared his throat again. "We'll figure it out." He pulled himself up in his chair. "I think I figured out why I'm on this thing's hit list."

"Really?" Sam looked surprised again. Dean decided not to take that as an insult to his intelligence.

"Yeah. According to this - " Dean tapped the screen of Sam's laptop, indicating the thing he'd had him look at. " - these Greek nature spirits are all part of this big...chastity club thing." He spread his hands. "Like you get in high schools in the Bible Belt. But these spirits take it seriously. So I'm thinking that that girl I saw was our naiad, and me getting a glimpse of her cans was...um. Bad."

"Probably felt threatened." Sam muttered it out, and Dean barely caught it. He swallowed and forcefully pushed on before he could analyze it.

"So...what do I do?" he asked. "Apologize?"

"Uh." Sam leaned back in his chair, staring up at the ceiling and pushing one of his cheeks out with his tongue. "Yeah, that - that might actually work. Go back down to the river and tell her you're sorry and that you didn't _intend_ to violate her? You can't run the risk of seeing her naked again, though, she'd probably drown you on the spot."

"So I should - what? Wear a blindfold?"

"That is not a bad idea," Sam said thoughtfully, shaking a finger and still looking at the ceiling. "No room to screw up."

"Well, you're gonna have to come with me this time, then," Dean pointed out. "I mean, to guide me. I imagine me falling in her river by accident'd piss her off, too."

"Yeah...okay. I - " Sam, who'd been sounding just super enthusiastic about helping Dean out like that, suddenly cut himself off. Dean shot him a confused look, and saw him reaching across the table to grab his laptop and drag it over to himself. He started typing furiously as soon as he had it. "I think I know how to keep her from telling anybody else. I mean, after you go apologize and get your death warrant revoked."

He seemed _way_ too calm, talking abut the figurative bounty on Dean's head, but Dean wasn't sure that it wouldn't've been the same if things between them had still been normal. In other words, it wasn't important. So he brushed it off.

"Okay, well, that's awesome," Dean said, spreading his hands again. "Anything that means I don't have to kill a whole ecosystem just to get rid of one monster. What's your plan?"

"I'm gonna try to make it so that nobody can make plans to fill in the river again," Sam replied, closing his laptop with a triumphant-sounding _snap._ "If she doesn't feel threatened, she won't have to kill. I need to try and get it so that she's protected."

"How're you gonna do that?" Dean asked. "Gonna use your pull as an 'FBI agent'?"

"I'll try," Sam replied, standing up with his computer in his hands. "I need to go to this place's city hall. You can drop me off there on your way to the river."

"But - " Dean paused in order to stand up. Some belligerent big-brother part of him, swelled up with everything that'd been going on lately, balked at the idea of Sam literally talking down to him. "How am I gonna get around there if I'm alone? I'm not gonna be able to see."

"Oh." The expression on Sam's face told Dean that he'd completely forgotten about that. "Uh...maybe you could just...be...really careful?"

"'Be really careful'?" Dean repeated. He felt something puffing up inside of him like foam in a glass of freshly-poured beer, frustration and anger and grief, and his tongue twitched in preparation to start yelling at Sam. About how he could still care about him even if he didn't wanna be fucked by him. About how Dean really deserved better than this, after everything he'd done for Sam. About how Dad had taught them to always, _always_ have each other's backs. Before he'd found out just how literally they'd been having each other's backs for most of a decade, but still.

And then it was just...gone. Dean was deflated before he could even start letting it out. He felt empty, and so tired that, for a second, he wasn't sure that his legs would keep holding him up. They did, though. Shockingly.

It'd only been a week, but like he'd realized yesterday, it felt like way longer, and he was already done. Dean had only been in this place a couple of times before in his life, but he knew what it was: this was what it felt like to give up. He just didn't have what it would take to coax Sam out of his twitchy, snippy shell all over again. So he was letting go.

"Fine," Dean said. "I'll drop you off at City Hall. Let's go."

He led the way out of the library. Sam followed him. He left the Greek mythology books on the table.

* * *

"Okay," Dean muttered under his breath, talking to himself as he dug through his duffel bag where it was sitting on the back seat. "Let's go ahead and get this over with."

He was back down at the river, parked in almost exactly the same spot he'd been in yesterday. It was still muddy and awful, but some of the water had either drained away or dried up, and at least it'd stopped raining. He wouldn't have to worry about slipping in a puddle, falling face-down in it, and drowning while he was stumbling around blind.

"This is freaking stupid." He _knew_ he had a bandanna in here somewhere. He'd never worn it, and he had no idea where he'd gotten it, but he knew he had it and that it was in his duffel.

Dean had let Sam out of the car at Lamona's city hall, which was smaller and shabbier-looking than a lot of the houses in town - most of which were very small and shabby indeed. He'd walked up to the door in his FBI suit and coat, which they'd stopped off at the motel to get so he'd seem more official, without looking back once. Dean wasn't sure if he'd forgotten about abandoning him to the mercy of their river monster as well as the fact that Dean could actually die, or if he just didn't care. Whichever it was, it didn't matter. Dean didn't care anymore, either.

"Aha." With a little grunt of satisfaction, Dean grabbed the square of thin fabric that he'd just touched and pulled it out. It was navy blue with white paisley - pretty standard. Maybe it'd been Dad's, originally. It was crumpled from being balled up at the bottom of his bag for so long, but that was just fine, with what he was going to use it for.

He folded it up so it was a wide band and pressed it over his eyes. He could still see slivers of light at the top and bottom when his eyes were open, so he loosened it and tried again. This time, it worked perfectly. Dean twisted the two ends into a tight knot at the back of his head. Maybe it'd be easier to just try and keep his eyes closed while he went down to the river, but he knew that they'd automatically fly open if he stumbled or ran into something, and then he might see the naiad's intimate areas again.

Blindfolded and swearing softly under his breath, Dean shut the car door, felt his way along the glossy paint until he reached the front and could lock it, and set out. He took tiny, shuffling steps to avoid putting his foot in a hole or onto a fallen branch that might roll out from under him. He held his hands out, occasionally sweeping them in a wide arc around himself to make sure he wasn't about to run into anything. And he kept an image of what he could remember from yesterday about the area firmly in his head.

For the most part, it worked. It was slow, but he managed to make his way around big rocks and trees, and only got slapped in the face with a branch once. It sent him jerking back, a string of loud expletives bursting out of his mouth. Then he ducked and went under it. It felt like the stiff needles and spiny bark scratched his face up a little, but he was okay.

It was a huge relief to finally reach the river. Dean had been able to hear the mindless roar of it ever since he'd gotten out of the car, but now it was way louder, and a couple of tentative steps and arm-waves in every direction told him that the only trees here were behind him. He was standing on the little strip of mud and slippery rocks that passed for a river bank. So he firmly planted his feet, cleared his throat, and called out.

"Hey," he said. He had to yell so that he could hear himself over the sound of the water. It seemed louder today than it had yesterday; maybe the rain had filled it up. "Uh...naiad?" He wished he'd asked Sam about the proper way to address these things. He might end up offending her again without ever laying eyes on her. "It's me. I was here yesterday - I'm gonna guess you remember."

Dean waited, but he didn't hear anything that could've been a response to that. Maybe the naiad wasn't even here, and he'd stumbled through a patch of very sharp, very wet forest for nothing. But, hell, he'd come all the way out here, so he might as well keep going.

"I...insulted you," Dean continued. "And I understand that what I did was pretty bad." He _did_ feel guilty. He'd never been the kind of guy who'd try to get a look at a naked woman without her knowing - or anybody else, for that matter. He was practically married to Sam (or had been, a couple of years ago), and he thought he'd been very respectful lately about staying away when he didn't want to be seen undressed.

Of course, he also thought that this water-ghost, or whatever she was, was overreacting by trying to drown him. But according to Sam, she was both super-shy and from a pretty prudish culture. It must've seemed like the only logical course of action to her.

"But it wasn't intentional," Dean went on after letting another few seconds of silence pass. "I didn't come down here yesterday wanting to see you like that. I didn't even know you existed. And today, I'm here to apologize." He reached up and tapped his blindfold. "I made sure I couldn't, uh...besmirch your honor again or anything." He suddenly remembered something. "Oh! Also, I came to tell you that your river's gonna be safe from now on. You won't have to worry about anybody else trying to kill you."

He really hoped that that would at least take a step towards appearing her. Dean knew it'd have an impact on him if someone he'd been trying to kill made an effort to protect him. And maybe he'd said something right, because when he stopped talking and listened for a response this time, he heard some quiet splashing.

It was almost lost in the noise coming off the river, and it was probably just a fish, but it was new. Dean shifted his weight from one foot to the other, grimacing when he felt the heel of one boot sink into the mud. And then somebody spoke.

"Take off your veil." It was a girl's voice - a woman's voice. Young, but twenties young, not teens young. She sounded regal and commanding, and she had a hint of a really weird accent that Dean felt like might be older than his country. "I'm covered, this time. You may look at me while we talk."

Figuring that, by "veil," she meant his blindfold, Dean reached up and tugged it off. Even though the sky was full of rain-heavy clouds, the daylight threw him for a loop after spending twenty or so minutes in total darkness, so he blinked rapidly to try and force them to adjust. When he could make out more than just vague shapes, he focused on what was in front of him.

It was the girl he'd seen yesterday. Except now, just like she'd told him, she was wearing clothes - a loose, sleeveless dress the same greeny-brown color as the river mud that had wound up in Dean's bed last night. A thick belt made up of about ten different kinds of water plant was knotted around the bottom of her ribcage, right underneath where her breasts had to be (the dress was so loose he couldn't actually tell). Her hair was twisted up into a complicated 'do on the back of her head, making it much shorter than it'd been the day before. It was grayer, too...but there was a streak of sky blue near her left temple. Now that Dean was close enough to make out her eyes, he could see that they were the same weird combination of colors.

A quick, almost involuntary look at the river behind her made Dean realize that her hair and eyes were the same color as the water, which was reflecting the sky. Gray clouds with a few scattered patches of clear blue. He also realized that he couldn't see her feet. She seemed to merge with the smooth flow from her calves on down.

"I tried to drown you last night," the naiad said. Her voice startled Dean; she'd been silent for almost a full minute and he'd been starting to get used to it. "But you woke up before I could fill your room."

"Yeah," Dean agreed. The reminder made his abused lungs start aching again in his chest. "I'm a pretty light sleeper."

"You're much harder to kill than the builder was," the naiad went on. Dean sucked on the inside of his lower lip. For some reason, he felt like that was a compliment "And you came to apologize. To restore my honor. That makes me think you deserve to live."

"Oh, well, thank you," Dean said, nodding. "Yeah. I feel bad about...what I did, and I'd really appreciate it if you stopped trying to kill me."

The naiad stared at him in silence for what felt like another solid minute. Dean swallowed a few times, noticing that she didn't blink at all. She probably didn't need to - she was a water spirit, maybe she could make her eyes as wet as she wanted just by thinking about it.

"I'd already intended to," the naiad said eventually. "Leave you be, I mean. The builder and his household were the first lives I'd ever taken, and I don't like the idea of having more blood on my hands." Her pale hands had been hanging by her sides, but now she lifted them and stared down at her palms. Like she could actually see that figurative blood. Dean noted that her fingernails matched her hair and eyes - which wasn't all that important, but it was interesting. "My kind aren't usually violent. Some of us hunt, occasionally, but we don't murder."

"You don't like killing unless it's absolutely necessary," Dean guessed. That was what he'd gotten out of that. "Bet my brother'd like you. He's, uh, the one trying to make your river off-limits to development right now."

The naiad waited a heartbeat before responding. Dean was starting to think that English wasn't her first language - she had to translate what he'd said into her mother tongue, then translate her reply back into English before she started talking. That was what was taking so long.

"I feel I might owe you an apology, as well," she said. She looked vaguely embarrassed. "There are very strict rules about men seeing virgin nymphs in their natural state, but they're from a different time. What you did probably didn't warrant death - especially because it was accidental." She heaved a sigh. Somehow, Dean could hear that soft sound; the racket of the river seemed to have faded into the background while they were talking. "I haven't had a good time of things lately."

"Well, yeah," Dean agreed with a short laugh. "Somebody tried to kill you. That tends to throw me off, too." He rubbed his chest without thinking about it. Even though he'd almost drowned in his bed because of this naiad, he was starting to realize that he would've felt really guilty about killing her. And not just because it would've ruined the river and everything around it. There'd been extenuating circumstances.

"I'm Minthe," the naiad said, pronouncing it "min-thy." Since it'd come out of the blue, it took Dean a fraction of a second to realize that she was introducing herself.

"Oh. I'm Dean Winchester," he replied. "My brother's Sam. You've never seen him."

Minthe tilted her head a little, looking like she was gonna correct him on that, but what she said instead was, "How is he planning to protect me?"

"I'm not really clear on the details," Dean admitted. "I know he went to City Hall. The people there control all the land around the town, so he's gonna tell them something that'll make them declare your river a protected area. That means nobody's allowed to fill it in or pollute it. I just don't know what he's gonna say - he didn't tell me."

Minthe studied him for a second, then rolled her shoulders in a fluid shrug. "You aren't on good terms with him."

The question - no, it'd been a statement - caught Dean just completely off-guard, so he blurted out his knee-jerk response before he could think of a better one. "What? No, we're fine...or, I guess, no. We're not." He paused, not sure why he'd decided to admit that to her. Was he really low enough to be sharing his personal problems with a random monster? He tried to move the focus off of himself. "How the hell'd you know that, anyway?"

Minthe smiled. Now she looked proud. "We're well-versed in the emotions of mortals. We're taught from an early age, and we have an affinity for it - especially the water spirits, like my kind, and the nereids, and the Oceanids. Your feelings and the language of your body are, after all, fluid."

"Okay," Dean said. Feelings weren't really his strong point, so he couldn't argue about that. "Well. Yeah. Sammy and me've kinda hit a rough patch." He wished it still felt like a win to use the nickname when Sam wasn't around to snap at him for it. "But that ain't really your problem." He kept his voice friendly, because the last thing he wanted was to piss her off again.

Minthe dipped her chin. It would've been a nod of agreement if she'd lifted her head back up, but she didn't. She just stared at Dean with her weird river-eyes. He was starting to get a little uncomfortable when she spoke up again.

"What is wrong with him?" It was a simple question, her voice holding nothing but curiosity.

"With who?"

"Your brother. What's wrong with him?" Minthe tilted her head back suddenly, looking at the sky. Dean had no idea what she was doing until the first drop hit his scalp. It was raining again, and of course she'd be interested in that.

"What d'you mean?" Dean forced himself to ask, instead of blurting out the first, bitter response that popped into his head. _You mean besides being a total bitch recently and acting like I spent our whole childhood raping and beating him?_

"I saw him when I came to end you," Minthe said calmly. She paused. "Not... _saw._ Sensed. That's the word. He was in his room, next to yours. And there was something wrong. Darkness, evil, covering light." Minthe looked up again, raising her arms to the sky as the rain picked up. Dean set his teeth and endured it, noticing that she was in almost exactly the same position he'd seen her in yesterday. She was facing him this time, though. "Like rainclouds covering the sky." She dropped her arms and looked at him again. "Did something happen to him? I understand that there are...others out there. Not here, though. Things that aren't human." She clasped her hands together over the slick fabric of her dress. "Was he changed into one of those?"

Dean was numb with shock. It seemed to've spread to his tongue, because he had a hard time getting out a "No" without making it sound weird. A second later, some of the feeling returned, and he could add, "Not as far as I know. And I think I might've noticed that."

Minthe was a spirit. A little goddess, like he'd thought to himself earlier that day. She obviously had all sorts of powers that a human didn't - she could fill a whole house with water from her river and drown everybody in it (though Dean was pretty sure by now that the wife and the maid had been unintentional collateral damage). It made sense that she'd be able to see things Dean couldn't. Monster souls. Other, more malevolent spirits.

That was an explanation for Sam's behavior that meant it wasn't Dean's fault. His heart felt like it was up in his throat, choking him with excitement with every rapid beat. Maybe something had attached itself to him? Some kinda ghost feeding off of and multiplying all his bad feelings? Or maybe something was possessing him. Moving him around like a puppet and speaking through him, saying stuff it knew would cut Dean right to the bone.

But...he guessed that Minthe could just've seen the stormclouds of Sam's negative emotions. His anger, his guilt, his fear, his disgust...his hate, even though Dean didn't want to believe that Sam was really feeling that for him. Minthe'd said she was really good with human emotions.

Dean swallowed. His heart had fallen out of his throat, back down to where it belonged in his chest, but a big, sore lump had replaced it.

"Could you tell what it was?" he asked Minthe. The sudden high and harsh drop made his voice come out even lower and rougher than usual. "I mean, d'you have any ideas?"

Minthe shook her head, looking like she genuinely regretted disappointing him. "No. I'm sorry - I can't travel far from my river, and only humans ever come here. I know that there are other things out there, but I'm not familiar with them." She paused. "I suppose it was something like black smoke. Does that help at all?"

And Dean's heart was back in his throat. He swallowed again, but it didn't budge. "I - yeah. It does, actually. Thank you."

Minthe waited, looking at him with an endless sort of patience that must come with the territory when you were immortal (or ageless, or whatever. Dean was fuzzy on this, since exact definitions were really more in Sam's wheelhouse, but he thought that immortality meant you couldn't die no matter what, and he already knew that naiads could be killed), and Dean realized that she was waiting for him to tell her what it was.

"I think it's a demon," he said to her. She looked blank; they must not have demons, or any equivalent, in Greek mythology. "It's something from - they're Biblical. Christian."

"Ah." Distaste flashed across her face. "I'm not very familiar with that, either."

For a second, standing in the rain and talking to something he'd never even heard of until way earlier that morning, Dean wondered what Minthe was doing here. She was a Greek creature, she probably spoke Greek as her first language, and she was about as far from Greece as she could get in this place. It wasn't like Washington even looked like Greece - not that Dean knew a whole awful lot about that area of the world, but he was ninety-nine percent sure that it didn't rain all the damn time there. So how had she even ended up in this tiny, muddy American river, fighting for her life against construction companies?

Maybe the same way an adlet, an Inuit monster from the far north of Canada, could end up in Texas. Dean still remembered what Sam had said back then: things migrated, just like people did. If the naiads had been breeding or something, they might've needed to spread out all over the globe. Into other countries.

"They're just smoke," Dean told Minthe, coming out of his thoughts. He figured explaining demons to her couldn't do any harm. Weird, how comfortable he was feeling with something that'd tried to kill him less than twelve hours ago. "They get inside you - possess you. Then they can control you and make you do whatever they want."

Minthe shrank back a little, and Dean blinked as she...rippled. Just a bit, like what happened when a raindrop fell in a pond. That must be her version of shivering.

"That sounds awful," she said. "And you think this is what happened to your brother?"

"Might be," Dean agreed, and then repeated it, just to try the words out and see how they sounded: "He might be possessed." They felt odd in his mouth. Like a puzzle piece that was supposed to fit, but hadn't been cut quite right. "With the way he's been acting. And...you sensed black smoke around him. Sounds like a demon to me."

It was still too new - almost raw. Dean shied away from thinking about the possibility he'd been given, and was grateful when Minthe started talking again, distracting him.

"Can you help him?" she asked. Her voice was gentle, almost like she could tell how sensitive of a topic this was for him. Maybe she could, Dean realized, remembering, once again, how she'd said she was good with feelings. "It's clear to me that, even though he's upset you, you still care deeply for him."

"I do," Dean said honestly, not hesitating for so much as a second before admitting it. "And I can. Help him, I mean. I know how to force it out. I've done it before." A bitter taste in his mouth prompted him to add, "If it _is_ a demon you saw."

Minthe didn't reply to that. After a couple seconds, she gave him a tiny smile and said, "I think our conversation is over. We've exchanged apologies, you've told me how you plan to save me, and in return, I've told you what I saw around your brother."

"Yeah," Dean agreed. He checked his watch - crap, he'd better go get Sam. He'd been down at the river, talking to the naiad, for almost an hour and a half now. Freaky, how fast time went when he was talking to someone he could be totally honest with. And sad, how the only thing he could be totally honest with these days was a Greek water monster. "I'd really better take off."

Minthe bowed slightly, which Dean thought might be some sort of old-world sign of respect. When she straightened back up, she said, "In the heyday of my kind and all others like us, when we took it for granted that mortals knew we existed, we had a term specifically for men like you and your brother. We called them heroes."

Dean blinked again. He had no idea why he was suddenly feeling uncomfortable about having that term applied to him. Usually, he was comping at the bit to get a little damn credit for what he did.

"Uh," he said. "I don't think I - "

"You knew about me," Minthe interrupted. "You knew about the demon. It may be a leap, but I am inferring that you and your brother slay monsters and protect innocents. Like Bellerophon, Theseus, Odysseus, Heracles, Perseus. Isn't that what almost all of the great Greek heroes did?"

Dean didn't really have an argument for that. Minthe smiled at him again, then turned away. She took a step out into the river, and as soon as her foot seemed to hit bottom, she dissolved into the water. Like a time-lapse video of an ice sculpture melting. The noise coming off the river popped back up to its previous volume as soon as she was gone.

Dean felt like his current mood (shocked, still sort of numb, and, as had become normal for him during the past week, melancholy as hell) and the current ambiance (gray sky, steady rain, lonely stretch of forested river) dictated that he stand there and stare into the fast-moving water for at least a few seconds, lost in thought. But like he'd told Minthe, he had to go. God forbid he put Sam through the agony of deciding whether or not to call him to figure out if he was still alive, and he wasn't sure he wanted to be alone with his thoughts right now. So he just turned around, stuffing the bandanna absentmindedly into one of his pockets, and started hiking back towards his car.

Navigating through the trees was a million times easier when he could see, but it was still difficult enough to hold most of his focus. Once Dean was driving back to town, though, behind the wheel, clothes damp, sitting on a towel again to protect the leather, he had to start thinking. He gritted his teeth and plunged in. Might as well get it over with fast. Like jerking a dislocated shoulder back into place.

Possession. Sam was possessed. Sam was possessed by a demon, and that was why he was mumbling and avoiding Dean's eyes and panicking every single time he touched him by accident. Dean tried it out again, and it still felt weird, but it was a neat explanation with a simple solution. He could just exorcise it and then everything would go back to normal. If it was a demon, it would mean that Dean hadn't done anything wrong, and that Sam didn't really hate him or fear him.

_If_ it was a demon. _If._ Tapping his fingers on the steering wheel in time to the rhythm of the windshield wipers, Dean sighed. Felt like he'd been doing that a lot lately. _If_ was the story of his freaking life, every aspect of it. If it was a ghost, they'd dig up the grave and burn the bones. If Dad didn't find out, him and a seventeen-year-old Sam could keep on sleeping in the same bed when they were alone. If the hunt dragged out another couple of days, Dean could score with that pretty witness and spend an hour or two forgetting about his soulmate choosing college over him.

If Sam was possessed, he could solve all his problems with a ring of salt and a few verses in Latin.

Dean licked his lips, which were chapped. He hadn't been drinking enough. Or he'd been drinking too much, depending on what kind of "drinking" you were talking about. He didn't have an appetite for his favorite foods, but he was a bottomless pit when it came to booze. He'd leave his bacon cheeseburger untouched and pound back ten beers without even tasting them, when they ate at the one diner that Lamona had.

For just a second, Dean forgot about Dad's opinion of what he'd had with Sam and wished he was here. Or that Dean knew where he was, at least, so he could call him and ask about this. Dad was the best hunter Dean knew, and he'd be able to tell him if it was really a demon or if he was just grasping at straws, only from his description of what was going on.

It'd been a while since he'd thought about Dad, or the fact that the whole reason he'd gone to get Sam from Stanford was that he needed help finding him. Dean felt guilty about that. He didn't _miss_ the old man, per se, but he was definitely worried about him. He was family, and he'd taught the two of them everything that'd kept them alive over the years. He'd also ordered Dean to completely ice his relationship with Sam...but Dean could kinda see where he'd been coming from with that one.

But Dad wasn't anywhere nearby, as far as Dean knew. And there wasn't anything real he could do to find him. He was on his own here.

The rain was coming down harder now. It seemed to come in waves throughout the day here, and Dean would've lived for the lulls between them if the humidity hadn't been so freaking high then. He was tired of constantly feeling damp, his clothes sticking to him and itching. He was tired of a lot of things.

Dean crept around a curve. Being on his own, having to depend on his judgment and only his, meant acknowledging that Sam probably wasn't possessed by a demon. He probably wasn't possessed by anything. Possession cases were rare, and almost all of them were demons. Which were also extremely rare. Dean could only remember one or two demon cases from when he was younger, and he was sure that Dad's journal would back him up on that.

And he and Sam had just barely run across one of those. The chances of tow of them popping up within a month of each other - and of the second wearing Sammy - were probably about as good as the chances of Dean himself spontaneously turning into a demon.

He couldn't blame all his problems on supernatural crap. Dean briefly closed his eyes, but opened them again a second later, since he couldn't afford to miss something and wreck. Yelling "monster" every time somebody did something he didn't like struck him as a really weak, petty thing to do. He was sure there were hunters out there who lived like that, but he wasn't gonna be one of them.

Dean guessed he could just test Sam and put it completely to rest. Say "Christo" and see if he flinched, splash some holy water on him and watch for steam and screaming. He was sure they still had some in the trunk. But if it was a demon (and it probably wasn't), testing would tip it off that he was on to it, which might put both of them in danger.

And if it wasn't a demon, he could end up really upsetting Sam if he tried to make sure. It'd indicate that Dean didn't trust him. He wasn't sure if Sam cared about that or not, bu he might. He also might get pissed off over Dean thinking that there was no way he could be pulling away without having something wrong with him.

Dean put all of that in the back of his mind when he reached the edge of town. Lamona was pretty spread out, but it was also pretty small, so it only took him about ten minutes to make it to the town hall once the roads were smoother and he could speed up again. He didn't want to be thinking about what he might've learned from Minthe when Sam got back in the car. His hunter's instincts wouldn't let him give anything away and risk tipping his hand, and the sixteen-year relationship in his past wouldn't let him do anything that might hurt his little brother.

Sam must've been watching fr the car and staying outta the rain inside the building, because he came out practically as soon as Dean pulled up to the curb. He jogged down the wet sidewalk with that familiar long-legged lope of his, head bowed to keep the drops from hitting him in the face. He looked happy as he pulled the passenger door open. Or satisfied, at least. Whatever it was, Dean could tell just from watching his expression that it cooled away to nothing as soon as he got in the car. With him.

_If it is a demon, it sure knows how to push my buttons,_ Dean though. He wasn't sure they could be that subtle, though. Lucy in Nevada had been torturing people to death, so if one of those things had hopped into Sam, wouldn't it've just killed him by now? One point for Sam just being too sick in the head to love him anymore.

"So how'd it go on your end?" Dean asked, clearing his throat. It felt like it was full of slime, which he was sure was a side effect of almost drowning in dirty water.

"Good," Sam replied. "They agreed. Didn't take a whole lotta convincing from me - I think they were already leaning towards closing the river to development. It's a real big tourist draw, apparently."

Dean snorted, throwing the car into first gear and pulling out into the street. "This town looks like a zit on the map. A map of the _county_ \- doesn't even show up on most maps of the state. They've got a tourism industry?"

"Apparently."

"So what'd you tell them?" Dean asked. He was honestly a little curious.

"Well, the mayor, the sheriff, and the head of the, uh, Economic Development Committee all came in to listen to me," Sam replied, pretty much talking to his window instead of Dean. "I told them I'd seen an endangered species of fish in the river yesterday, so they were legally obligated to protect it. I don't think they know too much about the Bureau out here - none of them brought up how far outside my jurisdiction conservation would be. Y'know, if I were a real FBI agent."

Under normal circumstances, Dean would've laughed at that. With things as they were, he forced a smile and drove.

"And the three dead bodies they've still got on their hands?"

"Said it was an ongoing investigation. That pretty much shut them down."

Dean guessed that that was okay. People died weird, unexplained deaths all the time, after all. Even in the normal, safe world of the people who lived here. He thought about telling Sam what'd happened with the naiad, but he waited for him to ask instead, wanting to hear it.

Eventually, Sam did ask him. "What about you?"

"Went pretty well, I think," Dean replied, turning onto the long, winding road that led down to their motel. "Got her to agree to back off, at least. And I told her she'd be safe from now on. So I don't think we've gotta worry about her anymore."

"Good," Sam said, nodding. Dean adjusted his grip on the wheel, letting the silence stretch out to the point of awkwardness before he broke it.

"You wanna pull out your laptop when we get back to the rooms and start looking for a new case?" Dean asked. "We do enough of these things, we're bound to find Dad, eventually. Or at least somebody who knows what happened to him."

Dean could feel tension sprout up between him and Sam as he talked, growing big enough to fill the whole car by the time he'd finished. That couldn't possibly be good. He looked over at him, waiting for him to say whatever was on his mind. Sam was still looking out the window, but Dean could see his throat, and he watched his Adam's apple bob as he slowly swallowed.

"I don't know," Sam began quietly. "We've been at this for months, Dean. We haven't found any trace of Dad since that first hunt, the demon one - maybe he doesn't want us to find him."

"You mean, like, he got into something bad?" Dean asked, knowing that Sam probably hadn't meant that at all. "Something he wants to protect us from?"

"I'm not sure he cared about us enough for that," Sam replied, and Dean couldn't help it - he flinched. He wasn't sure if it was from Sam implying that Dad didn't love them, or from Sam talking about him in the past tense. It didn't really matter, because Sam didn't even seem to notice his reaction. "But...what I'm trying to say is that I'm not sure we're accomplishing anything here. I don't think there's a point in us looking for another case."

"Well, what if Dad wants us to - to pick up where he left off?" Dean challenged. "Saving people, hunting things - the family business."

"Maybe that's what he wants _you_ to do," Sam shot back. He was starting to sound angry, and Dean knew he should stop pushing, but that was another thing he was getting tired of: coddling Sam. "But I'm not good at this, and I don't like it. I never did. I got out, I had a girlfriend, and I was gonna live a normal life. I was gonna be _happy_. And I'm pretty sure I can get all that back, just so long as I don't get all tangled up in...in _this_ again."

Dean wanted to say something cruel in response to that. Maybe something about how he doubted Sam's girlfriend would want him back, now that she knew he'd spent most of his teenage years letting his brother diddle him. But he held himself back from doing that, at least.

"What d'you mean, you're not good at this?" Dean demanded. "Yeah, you're a little rusty, I'll go ahead and give you that, but that's gonna happy when you spend two years cooling your heels. You were practically born into hunting, Sam. All those skills aren't gonna just go away." He couldn't quite muster up the courage to look at him while he was talking. "You're smart, you're a whiz at research, and you're strong and fast and real clever when it comes to fighting. You're good at this."

"I don't want to be, then," Sam said. I left because I was tired of being a freak. I'd wanted to run away since I was eight or nine, and when I got that letter from Stanford, that was finally my ticket out. I'm not gonna just give up and jump back into the life for Dad - we fought all the time, and he completely cut me off when I went to school. And I'm definitely not gonna go back in for _you._ "

"Why don't you tell me how you really feel, Sam," Dean deadpanned through a dry mouth He immediately jumped to sarcasm as he stared hard at the road, because he'd never heard that much venom in Sam's voice before, and he knew he'd tear up if he didn't distance himself. He kept thinking that Sam'd run out of new ways to hurt him, and he just kept on being wrong.

Dean had interviewed enough people - friends and family of the victims of monster attacks - with an ax to grind to recognize the kind of hate Sam seemed to be feeling right now. It only came from being hurt, wronged, betrayed in a major and visceral way. Something had made Sam really, truly believe that Dean had done horrible things to him when they were younger.

"...I'm sorry," Sam said quietly, after the silence had gone on for what felt like a couple of years. He somehow managed to say it in a way that made it pretty clear that he wasn't sorry at all. "Dean, I...I've tried so hard to do this. To work with you, and forget everything, and...do the right thing, I guess. But it's just not working. You can believe it's 'cause I'm not strong enough, if it makes you feel better."

_If it makes you feel better._ Dean swallowed, letting the condescension go.

"I think..." Sam hesitated. "I think you'd better just take me back to Stanford. Okay? And then you can do the next hunt on your own." He looked down at his lap, at his hands. "Call me if you find Dad. But other than that...please. Just leave me alone."

Dean turned into the motel parking lot. He found a spot, which wasn't hard. They were all empty, except for the one right in front of the office, so he just had to take his pick. He killed the engine, then looked over at Sam. It was like staring at the sun. It made his eyes water.

"One more hunt," he said with a firmness that he didn't feel.

Sam was already shaking his head. "No, Dean. Trust me, this'll be better for both of us."

"No," Dean parroted. "Look, you wanna walk away from me forever? That's fine. That's your choice. I'll let you do whatever you want, I'll never both you ever again. But only if you work one last case with me."

Sam looked at him. All of a sudden, he seemed as heavy-lidded, bone-deep, soul-weary _tired_ as Dean felt.

"Just a short one," Dean said. "A coupla days. You can pick it out, it can be anything, and I'll treat it like any other case. I won't try to drag it out, promise. He had to bite the inside of his cheek hard enough to draw blood and then focus on the pain in order to force himself to say the next part. "And then I'll drive you...home."

Saying that was rough. Sam's home should've been here, with Dean, in the car where they'd both practically grown up. Not in one place - and not in California, where Dean hardly ever went. There weren't a lot of monsters there.

Sam just kept looking at him. It would've been normal, or at least good manners, for him to ask Dean why he was so adamant about doing one more hunt. But he must've decided that he didn't care enough to even pretend to be interested, because he didn't ask.

"Okay," he said, opening the door on his side and swinging his legs out into the rain. "I'll go start looking."

Dean sat back in his seat, watching Sam walk to his room, unlock the door, and disappear inside through the windshield. So this was it. Sam was leaving again, and this time, he'd explicitly said that he didn't want Dean coming after him. Sure, they hadn't talked for two years the first time Sam'd run off, but on Dean's part, that'd just been out of respect for his brother's clear need for some time to himself. It hadn't been because Sam had told him not to call.

He guessed he had two options. Let Sam go, and find some way to cope with spending the rest of his life (which probably would be all that long, anyway, in his line of work)alone. Or...

Dean rubbed his face, thinking back on what Minthe had said to him. _Black smoke._ Or he could look into that explanation. And maybe get Sam, the real Sam - _his_ Sam - back.

Maybe he should give Bobby another call.


	30. Chapter Thirty

_So that's your plan, huh?_ Sam asked Lucy, watching through his eyes as his hands rummaged around in his backpack, looking for his computer. _You're just gonna take me away fro him?_

_I'm hoping that that turns out to only be the first part of my plan, but yes,_ Lucy replied. She'd found Sam's laptop, so she straightened up with it in his hands and walked over to the room's small, cheap table. _I'm going to separate you two. I asked myself what the most painful thing I could possibly put you and your precious pervy brother through would be, and that was the obvious answer._

_With the way you've been having me act..._ Sam's hands set the laptop on the table, opened it up, and impatiently tapped the scarred faux-wood laminate as Lucy waited for it to boot. _...what makes you think Dean won't be happy to get rid of me?_

He wouldn't. Of course he wouldn't. (Sam hoped, at least...Dean really seemed to have been pulling away fro him lately.) But even having Lucy _think_ that she wasn't affection one of them would be a victory.

His chance of that victory, though, flew out the window when Lucy made a dismissive snorting noise inside his head.

_You must be kidding,_ she said. _Did you taste the angst that came off of him when I told him you wanted to go back to Stanford and never see him again?_ She paused. _Stupid question. Of course you didn't - you're human._ Sam's login screen popped up, and Lucy tapped out his username and password without hesitating. She must have fished them out of his memory. _Technically._

_What?_ Sam didn't have skin, but the surface of his soul definitely crawled at that and what it implied. _What d'you mean, "technically"? What is that?_

_Well, you're not exactly one hundred percent, full-blooded human with me in here, are you?_ Lucy asked. Sam, though, couldn't shake the feeling that that hadn't been what she meant. _Anyway. You leaving and intentionally cutting off all contact with Dean because you can't stand to be around him or remember your past together - I thought that was implied rather strongly - will be_ the _most painful thing he's ever gone through._ She opened Sam's default browser. _And don't think I don't know what you were feeling when I sprung that. Not being able to whore yourself out to your big brother is gonna break you, isn't it, Sammy?_

_I didn't do that._

_You exchanged sex for the affection you so desperately craved,_ Lucy pointed out with one of those weird mental shrugs of hers. _Sounds like whoring to me._

This time, Sam didn't respond, having learned over and over again by now not to waste time or energy on arguments he couldn't possibly win. And he was starting to think that, maybe, he should just endure Lucy's abuse and be quietly happy with the way things had turned out. Hunting would keep Dean busy and take him all over the country - so he was bound to get over the pain of losing Sam and find somebody else, somewhere, eventually. And since Lucy had pretty much told him to stay away from Sam, there was no way she could keep hurting him.

_Oh, I heeeeeard that,_ Lucy singsonged. The spiritual approximation of Sam's gut clenched. _Or felt it, I suppose. I don't know how to explain it to you. But the longer you and I are in this very pretty bed together, Sammy, the easier it's getting for me to read you._ The browser had come up on the screen of the laptop, but Lucy just left the cursor blinking in the search bar as she leaned back in the chair and laced Sam's fingers together behind his head. She closed his eyes, too. Maybe so she could focus completely on him. _You just keep on surprising me, though. Your Stockholm syndrome seems_ so _pronounced, but you must not know your brother very well at all if you think he'll just move on and let you go._

_I thought Dean was my rapist, according to you,_ Sam said, trying not to think it too snidely. _If I had Stockholm syndrome, he would've been holding me hostage._

_I know you took a Psych class your freshman year, so you might think you're an expert, but you're gonna have to defer to me on this one,_ Lucy replied. _I spent a month in a psychiatrist, once. Picking up and skinning hitchhikers, that was fun. But I can tell you for certain that Stockholm syndrome, broadly defined, is sympathy for one's abuser._

_Enlightening._ Sam didn't care, because that didn't apply to his relationship with Dean, anyway. _Thanks._

_I'm not a parasite, my darling little victim,_ Lucy cooed, rubbing one of her smoke tendrils affectionately against Sam's soul. _This is a symbiotic relationship._ She let him draw back. _Which is why I'll tell you that there is_ no _way Dean's gonna leave you alone. He's too possessive._

_He's_ protective, Sam corrected in a growl before he could stop himself.

_It's not healthy to tell yourself that,_ Lucy responded. _I've looked through your memories, and I can agree that he kept you safe. Because he didn't want his toy to get broken. Dean believes that you belong to him, that he deserves you. That you don't have a right to leave. He'll come to get you back eventually - he'll plan on dragging you by that floppy hair of yours if he has to._

_He didn't do that the first time I left,_ Sam pointed out.

_Didn't he?_ All of a sudden, Lucy forced Sam to recall the night that Dean had broken into the apartment he shared with Jess. Told him that their father was missing and that Sam had to come with him, because he needed his help. _He did wait two whole years that time, I'll admit. But he won't now. Not after he was_ this close _to making you his again._

_He needed...me...to help him find our dad,_ Sam said uneasily. It was difficult to form the words in his mind. After all, Dean had freely admitted that he _could_ find their father on his own - he just didn't want to.

_Please - maybe he used that as an excuse,_ Lucy replied. _Have you considered the possibility that Dean might've had something to do with John Winchester dropping off the face of the Earth? I know you've played around with the idea of Daddy ditching him because he was tired of running around with his incestuous freak of an oldest son._

Sam shrank back, because he _had_ thought that. But it'd been alone time ago, and while he was still angry.

_But maybe your dad's dead,_ Lucy continued. _Maybe Dean slipped up on a hunt and got him killed - we both know he's more violent and reckless than he is smart. He's putting on this grand search to cover his ass, so you won't hate him for what he did._ Lucy made a humming sound, like she was thinking. _Or he could've intentionally killed your father, and used his "disappearance" as an excuse to go pick you up and get you to stick around. That's definitely possible. After all, with Daddy dearest permanently out of the way, the two of you could fuck like rabbits._

_No,_ Sam said as soon as Lucy gave him an in. _He didn't do that. He wouldn't do that._

_You're right on that front, Sammy,_ Lucy agreed after a few seconds of thoughtful silence. _I mean, Dean might think you're his god-given property, and you might think he loves you, but he still chose dear old Dad over you when you ran away. For two years! And he only bothered to so much as check up on you once he knew for sure he wouldn't tip your father off by doing it. Y'know, 'cause he was out of the picture._

Sam winced, much like Dean had earlier, when Lucy had told him to take Sam back to Stanford. As much as he would've rather not had to acknowledge it, the demon had touched a nerve. During those two years at college, even as he'd been building up a mountain of resentment towards his older brother, a part of Sam had wondered why he'd never even called. He knew that he'd spent their last six months or so together pushing Dean away pretty fiercely, but still. They'd had a rock-solid relationship for more than a decade before that.

The tiny part of Sam that still missed Dean had eventually decided that his silence meant that he'd chosen their father over him. Of course that only made Sam more bitter - god, if only Dean knew. He suspected, lying in bed with Jess late at night, that Dean's abandonment was a big motivator in him dating her: he badly needed to know that someone loved him again.

_Oh,_ Lucy said of his reaction, making a noise like she was sucking her teeth. _I guess you'd already thought about that, hadn't you, Sammy? Old wounds._

_So you think..._ He had to focus. Push past the pain and self-doubt. What he needed to know here was the rest of Lucy's "plan," so he could start figuring out how to derail it. _That Dean'll show up again. Even though you told him not to._

_I know he will,_ Lucy confirmed. _Maybe he'll break in again - which'll scare you half to death, of course. And since you're so terrified of your brother, and it makes you so uncomfortable to be around him, you won't have any choice but to kill him. Or at least hurt him so badly he'll never set foot outside a hospital or a nursing home ever again._

Sam hadn't thought that Lucy could do anything worse to him or Dean than separating them for good, but he'd clearly been wrong. Frozen, he forced himself to think past his first, selfish desires. Spending the rest of his life in a wheelchair or with brain damage would be pure agony for Dean - and knowing that Sam had done it in an effort to protect himself from him would make it so much worse. So as much as it hurt, he hoped that Lucy just wound up killing him. Releasing him.

_Hand over those rose-tinted glasses, Sam,_ Lucy said, apparently reading his mind again. He missed her just being able to tell what he was feeling. _If your baby-raping brother dies, at our hands especially, he'll be going straight to Hell. Where_ I'm _from._

_It doesn't work that way,_ Sam thought with a shock-numb mind. Lucy burst out laughing.

_Please, you've got no idea how it works!_ she crowed. _It's actually embarrassing, how little you know about my kind and where we're from. I can feel you perk up every time I give you some new piece of common knowledge._

Sam silently admitted to himself that, unfortunately, she was right. A lot of what he knew now about demons had come from this possession - which was pretty pathetic. They just didn't run into them that often.

_Okay._ Lucy finished laughing and opened Sam's eyes again. His laptop had gone to sleep; she woke it up with a couple of taps to the trackpad. _I need to devote all my attention to finding the easiest "hunt" I possibly can - I can't believe you two idiots call it that, by the way. So I can show Dean just how badly you want to get away from him. Can you be a good boy and just sit quietly in your occipital lobe while I do that?_

So that was where she had him. It made sense, he guessed, since he could see right now and the occipital lobe of the brain - the one at the very back of the head - had everything to do with vision. Jess had taught him that.

_No,_ Sam thought defiantly.

_I didn't think so,_ Lucy replied. _That's why I've got a nice little memory to keep you busy. Yay!_ She thought out an obnoxious clapping sound, and then grabbed Sam before he could get away, ready to shove him into her edited playback. _Oh, you wanna know the fun thing about this one?_

_No!_ Sam repeated, twisting uselessly.

_I didn't change anything about it at all,_ Lucy responded, ignoring him, as usual. She let go of him, and allowed the memory to swallow him up. _It was already perfect._

* * *

Late January, 2003

* * *

Sam couldn't help being disoriented at first. Just a second ago, the demon calling all his shots had been taunting him as he drifted in the formless black of the inside of his body. Now, just like every time he got even the illusion of control back, his senses were shocked. He wasn't sure where (or when) he was, or what was going on.

It was dark, and Sam was on his back on a mattress that seemed to be made out of cardboard, tangled up in scratchy, worn sheets. He was warm, and just a little sleepy. And he felt really, really good.

It took him another few seconds to register the pressure of hands bearing down on his shoulders, and the familiar, chest-crushingly comforting scent of Dean. And then another second after that to realize that the two of them were having very slow, very good sex in a motel room.

If Sam hadn't just been a passenger, reliving this memory at a level of detail he never could've managed on his own, he would've sat bolt upright, thrown his arms around his older brother's neck, and started wailing into his bare chest. He'd missed this for so long, and he needed it so badly. Being close to Dean in this casual, affectionate way was like a cooling balm on all the parts of his spirit that had been rubbed raw by the long days of torture.

The Sam controlling this version of his body, though, had no idea what he was going to be put through in the future. So he just chuckled low in his throat and arched the small of his back in a liquid motion, driving Dean's member directly onto his swollen, sensitive prostate. "Ohhh my god, Dean. So good."

His voice sounded, maybe, a quarter of an octave higher than it did now. So Sam guessed that this memory was from...two or three years ago?

"Just remember that you didn't wanna get up and do this," Dean replied in a husky mumble. Even though Sam's eyes had probably finished adjusting to the dark hours ago, he still couldn't make out Dean's face. It sure sounded like the shadows hid a smile, though.

Lucy had been telling the truth: she hadn't laid so much as a particle of smoke on any aspect of this memory. Sam could tell because it was so unlike all the other times memory-Dean had screwed him during the past week. It was gentle, it was loving, and Dean was taking his time. Not pounding him raw because he was in a hurry to come and get away from him. Sam felt precious and treasured, which was how he'd always felt when Dean was making love to him. How he was supposed to feel.

Of course, there was the question of _why_ Lucy had chosen not to change anything. Based on her behavior so far, Sam couldn't believe that she'd just give him a pleasant memory to relax in. Something was going to go wrong.

But...even when he made an effort, he couldn't quite think about what that might be. He was exhausted, and every scrap of consciousness in him just wanted to focus on enjoying the nice part of this rerun while it lasted.

"Gimme a break," Sam panted. "We had a late night." He was warm, but he wasn't sweating. Probably because Dean was the one doing all the work here. Sam could feel the heat coming off of his damp skin where his knees were hooked over his hips, and his legs were wrapped around his waist. When Dean's flat stomach brushed against his erect and weeping cock, he rubbed one foot against the other in pleasure.

"You'd think you'd be used to that by now," Dean pointed out. One of his hands disappeared from the shoulder that it'd been gripping, but Sam felt it again a second later, when Dean ran his fingers through his sleep-tangled hair. "Hair's gettin' pretty long, Sammy. Dad's gonna wanna cut it soon."

With those two sentences, Sam's soul froze like it'd been dipped in a bucket of liquid nitrogen.

He knew when he was now. And more than anything, he just wanted to leave.

The memory version of Sam groaned loudly. He was nineteen - he'd be turning twenty in May of this year. "God, Dean. D'you have to mention Dad while we're having sex?"

_Yeah, go ahead and announce to the whole freaking world what you're doing. Idiot. It was dark, maybe he could've convinced himself the two of you were wrestling._

Sam the twenty-two-year-old observer couldn't do much more than tremble with dread and think furious insults as Dean laughed. "Okay, sorry. Will this help bring the mood back?"

A callused hand wrapped around Sam's dick and started stroking with even, practiced movements. Dean knew exactly how to make him feel good without getting him off too early. Of course he did; he'd had years of practice, after all.

It was so amazing that, for a second, Sam forgot completely about what was going to happen and let his soul melt into a puddle of bliss. But he remembered and tensed up again a second later. He didn't have a choice. And Lucy had probably known that when she'd thrown him in here.

This motel, in Port Huron, was much nicer than the ones they usually stayed at. They had three rooms this time, for one thing. The bedroom, which the two of them were in right now, with two queens and the cot that Dean was supposed to be sleeping on. The bathroom, which was right off the bedroom. And the kitchenette/living area, which was the first room you saw when you came in through the door to the outside.

Sam's father had taken off around seven last night, frustrated with the case, and left him and Dean to keep doing research. They assumed he'd hit the nearest bar. And when he wasn't back by midnight, they'd assumed he'd crashed at some borderline-hooker's place and gone to bed themselves.

He still hadn't come back four or five hours later, when Dean woke Sam up with kisses to the throat and a hand down his boxers. Sam had originally rolled over and tried to go back to sleep, but Dean was persistent. So, eventually, he laughingly gave in and agreed to early-morning sex, which turned out to be fantastic.

Even right now, the two of them thought they were still alone.

Sam knew he couldn't change a memory. But he tried anyway, straining desperately to make his younger self look away from Dean's face for _one goddamn second_ and glance at the door they'd left half-open. Because maybe he'd see the dark figure standing just past it. And realize that it was their dad, come back exhausted and angry after a night of unsuccessfully tracking the monster they'd come here to hunt, and now paralyzed by disgust as he watched his two sons screw each other and enjoy it.

But of course nineteen-year-old Sam didn't look. He just finished a second after Dean blew his load inside of him, splattering his older brother's chest and stomach with come. It was a screaming, thrashing orgasm, one that the people in the next room probably heard. If their father had still had any doubts at all about what they were doing, they had to be gone after that.

"Oh, man, that was good," Sam breathed out, spreadeagled on the bed and still seeing stars from his aftershocks. He wasn't so out of it that he couldn't lift a hand to cup the back of Dean's head when he kissed him, though.

"You already said that earlier," Dean reminded, pulling back. "Can't you come up with anything other than 'good' to describe how great of a lay I am? Like, uh, 'awesome'? 'Amazing'? 'Stupendous'?"

Sam laughed and shoved weakly at Dean's sticky chest. "Shut up, dude. My brain's fried right now - from that _stupendous_ orgasm you just gave me."

_Shut. Your mouth. Shut. Your stupid. Mouth._

"It's always stupendous when you're with me, ain't it?" Dean asked with a playful lilt to his voice, helping Sam dig his own grave. "I'm gonna go take a shower." The mattress creaked as he pushed himself up. "Wanna join me?"

"Oh, no way." Sam tossed a forearm over his eyes. "I told you, I'm fried. I'm gonna try and get another hour or two of sleep."

"Well, okay, good luck with that." Dean slid off the bed. "When I'm clean, though, we might have to go for round two." He laid a hand on Sam's forehead, brushing hair away from his face. "Y'know, if Dad's still not back."

_Stupid._

"Better take your time with that shower, then," Sam replied, barely getting it all out before he had to give in to a jaw-cracking yawn. "My refractory period's gonna be at least forty-five minutes, after _that_."

God, they were sickening to listen to. How the hell had they put up with each other's painfully-cute pillow talk back then? Maybe twenty-two-year-old Sam was just feeling spiritually sick because he knew what was coming.

"You go ahead and recover, then." Dean leaned down to kiss Sam's temple. "See you in a bit."

He padded off. The shower stuttered on a minute later.

_Get up, get up, get up, get up -_

Sam didn't get up. He didn't make any effort to hide his nakedness, either, or to deal with the fact that he had an ass full of his brother's come. Wishing Dean was laying next to him, holding him, so badly that a little bit of that longing broke through to Sam the passenger, nineteen-year-old Sam rolled over onto his stomach and nuzzled into the pillow with a soft sigh.

Then the door swung almost soundlessly the rest of the way open and the light _click_ ed on, harsh and fluorescent. Sam groaned and pulled the other pillow over his head, blocking out both the glare and the buzz of the tubes. Twenty-two-year-old Sam listened to heavy boots cross the matted carpet with a stiff, rage-filled stride, and wondered how he hadn't immediately figured out that it was his father.

"Turn the light off, De," nineteen-year-old Sam complained into his pillow. "Get back in the shower. Told you I wanted to go back to sleep - you're wasting water."

A rough hand, too large to be Dean's, clapped down onto Sam's shoulder hard enough to make the bare skin sting. It yanked him over onto his back, forcing a puff of breath out of him in a surprised gasp. The lights dazzled him for a second, but soon, he could make out his father, looming over him. John Winchester's face was so hard it looked like someone had chiseled it out of granite.

It felt like somebody had taken a giant ice cream scoop and torn out everything below Sam's ribcage. The hollow sensation made him lightheaded. His throat and jaw worked, but for a while, he couldn't say anything. He was frozen like a deer in a pair of headlights under his father's soul-crushing hazel gaze.

Even when Sam finally did manage to find his voice, all he could croak out was, "D-Dad?"

The hand on Sam's shoulder tightened until he could feel his collarbone creaking inside of him. He was just about to cry out in pain when, all of a sudden, his dad snatched his hand back. He whirled away from him, striding towards the bedroom door and growling, "Put some goddamn pants on and follow me."

Sam rolled out of bed. He'd started to shake, and his legs were so weak they almost folded up and dumped him on the floor when he put his weight on them. He doubted that any of that had come from the mind-blowing orgasm he'd just had. He scrabbled for the jeans he'd discarded on the floor next to the bed last night and stepped into them, then let out an unintentional yelp of surprise when his father hit the light switch again and plunged him into darkness.

It made the light spilling out of the bathroom, through the door that Dean had left open a crack, more obvious. Sam stared at that light and listened to the pattering sound of his brother's shower as he pulled his jeans up over his bare ass, going commando out of necessity. He considered darting in there and telling Dean what was going on and begging for his support, but he nixed that idea a second later.

He was nineteen, dammit. He'd be twenty in three months, and there was a scholarship offer from a very prestigious school burning a hole in the bottom of his backpack. He'd dealt with that on his own, and he could handle this, too.

Sam was a grown man. He couldn't run to his big brother for help every time something came up. He'd only involve Dean if he absolutely had to.

As he made his way out into the main room, blinking rapidly to try and force his eyes to adjust to the darkness, he saw the black-on-black figure of his father make a sudden, jerky movement. Sam automatically flinched backwards. His dad rarely hit him - and even then, it was usually only a cuff on the head. Or the spankings he'd given him when he was still young enough for them. But if there'd ever been a time for John to take a real, honest-to-god swing at him, this would be it.

His father was just angrily snatching the nearest jacket off the back of a chair, though, and tossing it at him. Sam caught it with trembling hands and almost dropped it. He barely had time to shrug it on and realize that it was Dean's leather one, inherited from their dad, before John grabbed the front of it with one hand, shoved the front door open with the other, and hauled him outside.

He practically threw Sam out into the cold, stomping after him. Sam stumbled on the icy concrete of the sidewalk, gravel digging into the soles of his bare feet, and realize he was going to fall. Before he could, though, his father grabbed him again. He shoved him up against the brick wall of the motel. It was jarring, and it made Sam's teeth click together and his ribs rattle. He just barely managed not to cry out.

Twenty-two-year-old Sam wanted to put all his strength into twisting away from his dad and then run. It didn't matter if he cut his feet to ribbons, or if he tripped and left half his face scraped across the asphalt of the parking lot. In that exact second, it didn't even matter if he never saw Dean again. Anything was better than what was coming next.

Sam was about two inches taller than his father, but it didn't seem like it now. John towered over him, holding him to the wall with both hands, his furious glare just barely visible in the light that'd started to bleed into the eastern sky. Sam could smell alcohol on his breath, which was coming in short, angry pants, but it was clear he wasn't drunk.

Because he hadn't been at a bar. He'd been hiking all over the county all night, taking sips from the flask he kept in the inside pocket of his jacket to keep himself warm and awake. And then he'd come back to...the two of them...

Sam shivered. He tried to tell himself that it was just because of the winter chill in the air, but he knew that that was only half of it.

"What'd I just see, Sam?" John eventually growled out, after letting the silence eat away at him for what felt like a full minute.

"I don't know," Sam mumbled in a voice that was almost too small for even him to hear, dropping his eyes from his father's face. Twenty-two-year-old Sam was relieved that he wouldn't have to look at him, at least.

"Don't you lie to me." His dad gave him a rough shake. "What were you and your brother doing?"

"Nothing." Sam crossed his arms over his bare stomach and wondered if he was going to throw up. It kind of felt like it.

"What'd I just tell you?" Another angry shake. "I'm only gonna ask one more time, Sammy - _what were you doing?!_ "

"M - " He didn't want to say it. He felt like speaking it out loud would taint what he had with Dean, what they'd had for years. Stain it forever with the horror and guilt and nausea of this moment.

Sam didn't really get why he had to say it, anyway. It wasn't like his father hadn't already figured out what they were doing for himself.

_Tell him you were fighting. Dean wanted to get up and keep doing research, and you wanted to go back to sleep. It's so much better than the alternative that he might just make himself believe it._

But nineteen-year-old Sam admitted, "Making love," in a quiet, hushed voice, and there wasn't anything twenty-two-year-old Sam could do to change that.

There was a beat of stunned silence from his father. Even though he had to've already guessed, hearing Sam actually say it had shocked him. Sam heard him swallow, as noisy and painful-sounding as if he'd had a mouthful of thumbtacks.

Then he stated, "You're telling me your big brother was 'making love' to you." His voice was too flat for Sam to tell what he was thinking. "You were letting Dean 'make love' to you."

"It's not a big deal, Dad," Sam squeaked out. If twenty-two-year-old Sam had had hands and a face, he would've buried the latter in the former. He had no idea why he'd said it, but it was pretty much the worst thing that could've come out of his mouth.

_"Not a big deal?!"_ Sams father roughly grabbed his chin with one hand and forced his head up, forced him to look him in the eyes. "It's _sick,_ Sam, most twisted thing I've ever seen in my entire hunting career - you're _brothers._ He had the same mother you do, the same father, and you let him climb on top of you and - and - look at this, I can't even say it." The hand on Sam's chin was shaking a little. With rage, he assumed. "This is - it's _inhuman,_ is what it is. I'd pump you both full of rock salt and silver if I didn't know for a fact that you two are full-blooded humans."

John snarled, his anger apparently reaching the point where words just couldn't express it anymore. Sam flinched, squeezing his eyes shut. He'd never seen his father like this before, and he was honestly afraid.

"But, hey," his dad growled. "I could be wrong. After all, you're acting like a couple of animals. A couple of monsters."

Sam wilted, wishing he could fold in on himself until he disappeared. Only his father's hands kept him from sliding down the wall and going fetal at the base of it. He'd been called a lot of things by his dad before. Selfish. Careless. Whiny. Bratty. Incompetent. Weak. But he'd never accused him of being less than human - of being like the things they hunted.

"Look at me," his father commanded. Sam shook and didn't open his eyes. "I said, _look at me_ when I'm talking to you!" He shoved him, and this time, Sam opened his eyes, not wanting John to get any rougher with him. "How long has this been going on?"

Sam wondered why he cared. A split second later, he realized that it probably wouldn't be a good idea to tell him the truth. There was no way of knowing what he might do if he found out that his boys had been sucking each other off in grade school - that Sam had lost his virginity to Dean at thirteen.

_That was smart, at least._

"Few months," Sam mumbled.

"A few months?" his father repeated incredulously. "What the hell is wrong with you? Why would you let him do that?" Sam could practically hear the click in his dad's brain as something occurred to him. "Did he force you into it?"

"No!" Indignation on Dean's behalf took away at least a little of Sam's fear, and he straightened slightly. No matter how worried he might be about what his dad was planning on doing to him, there was no way he could let him think that Dean had raped him. "Of course not! D'you really think he'd ever do something like that?" Sam couldn't believe that their father would even entertain the possibility. He'd always assumed that Dean was his favorite - after all, Dean followed orders without question, seemed perfectly content with the idea of hunting for the rest of his life, and never talked back or argued. Unlike Sam.

"I don't know what I think," John replied, sounding bitter. "After all, the idea that Dean would commit incest never so much as crossed my mind - and then I come home and have to watch him pounding you into the mattress." Sam bowed his head again, under the weight of his father's disgust. "After that, I've got no idea what your brother might be capable of."

"He didn't rape me," Sam muttered into the collar of the jacket he was wearing. It smelled like Dean's aftershave, and he tried to draw as much comfort from that as he could. "If that's what you're asking. I wanted it." He just barely kept himself from adding that he'd needed it, which had been entirely true the very first time they'd had real sex.

John waited a beat before asking the obvious next question. "Did you talk him into this?"

"No!" Sam repeated, lifting his head again and glaring angrily at his father. "This was mutual, Dad. We both wanted it, we both agreed to it. I know it's wrong, I know it's gross - so does Dean. God knows we've talked it to death. But it's because...we..."

Sam trailed off, faltering with the realization that nothing he was saying was making any difference. He started shaking again, and to his horror, the backs of his eyes stung with tears. Because his relationship with Dean didn't seem like anything but a shared mental illness, with his father staring down at him. And the beautiful thing they'd just done seemed like a sin. A travesty. An abomination.

"Because you what, Sam?" his dad asked quietly.

"We...love each other," Sam whispered, not seeing any choice but to answer.

_Should've said something else._

"You love each other," Sam's father repeated, taking a deep breath. "Incest isn't _love_ , Sam. What you and Dean have is a sickness - poison."

To his horror, Sam felt himself shaking his head. It must've been an unconscious motion. "No, I - "

"I don't give a damn how you feel about him, Sam," John cut in loudly, interrupting him. Speaking of feelings, all of his had come back into his voice. The anger and the hate and the disgust. Except that it was past disgust now - more like straight revulsion. "Shut up, and listen to me." Sam opened his mouth, but closed it again immediately when his father shook him. "No, Sammy, _listen to me_. Dean is your _brother_. You've been sleeping with your brother. Your _feelings_ don't matter - it's sick, it's wrong, it goes against nature, and you're gonna stop it right this second. Understand?"

Sam nodded numbly, and was rewarded with another shake. "I wanna hear you say it."

"Okay," Sam whispered. "Okay..."

"This ends _tonight_ ," his father growled. "No more sleeping in the same bed, no more letting him _hold_ you while you're watching TV, no more sitting an inch apart in the back seat while I'm driving." He pulled Sam off the wall. Sam confused for a second, until his dad pulled Dean's jacket off of him. He folded it up and stowed it under one arm. "No more wearing his clothes.

Sam thought about pointing out that his father was the one that had thrown the jacket at him, or that he was probably going to freeze out here without anything on his upper body, but he decided against it. He just stayed silent and folded his arms tightly against his chest, feeling his nipples practically shrink to pinpricks in the cold air.

_Good. Just keep your mouth shut._

Some of John's anger seemed to have faded away. He was rubbing his face with one hand now instead of holding Sam against the wall.

"Wondered why neither of you ever seemed interested in girls," he muttered. Sam didn't reply, since he seemed to be talking to himself. "Thought you might be gay. That would've been all right; I could've dealt with that." He dropped his hand and glared at Sam again. "I don't wanna see you and your brother doing anything like this ever again. Understand, Sammy?"

That was the second time he'd asked Sam if he understood that he had to put an end to his relationship with Dean. It hammered home how deeply he meant it. Sam nodded, wondering what their father would do if he ever caught the two of them together like this again. Kill both of them with one bullet?

John seemed satisfied with the nod, even though he'd needed verbal confirmation last time. "Good." He heaved a sigh, crossing his arms over his chest. Sam relaxed slightly, thinking that his anger was finally spent. Then he spoke up again. "I'm gonna go ahead and be honest with you, Sam. I've been thinking that there was something off about you for a while now, something wrong with you, but I never would've guessed that it was _this_."

Sam flinched back so hard that the back of his skull hit the brick wall. It hurt pretty badly, and made his vision gray out for a split second. Sam the passenger quivered helplessly inside him, having remembered this part, but also having hoped that, maybe, he could just skip over it.

His father either hadn't noticed the flinch or had intended for it to happen, because he kept talking without asking if he was all right.

"This is a sickness," he said quietly, repeating himself. He reached out and put a hand on Sam's naked shoulder. Sam couldn't tell if he was making some misguided attempt to comfort him, or holding him in place. Either way, it felt wrong, because that was where Dean had been gripping him earlier. During sex. "It's like a - a monster inside you, Sammy, and you're gonna have to kill it, just like every case we've ever worked. You and Dean both. Maybe you can get rid of this and the two of you can go back to being normal, healthy, good kids again if you try hard enough. Don't touch him - don't even think about him."

His hand vanished, and Sam looked up at him. The emotion in his eyes now was perfectly familiar: disappointment. Sam had let his dad down again for about the millionth time.

"Dad?" Sam croaked. His father didn't say anything, and he interpreted that as permission to speak. "Please don't - talk to Dean."

Because Sam was more than used to having their dad pissed at him. To being a hundred miles from his good graces. But John Winchester was Dean's idol; his hero. He worked himself to the bone trying to please the man on a daily basis. Sam didn't know that he'd be able to handle having this disappointment and disgust aimed at him.

"I can do this," Sam continued. "I can handle it on my own."

His dad held his gaze for a long second, then shook his head, looking away. "Fine; I guess we're done here. Get back inside." Cod for "I never wanna talk about this ever again." "I'll go grab breakfast for the three of us."

He turned away, walking back to the Impala. Sam hated himself for not hearing it pull up. He slumped against the chilly wall of the motel, knowing his father well enough to read between the lines of his words and movements: he was leaving because he couldn't stand to look at him for another second. And he was taking Dean's jacket with him. He'd probably forgotten he even had it.

"And for god's sake, take a damn shower before I get back," John tossed over his shoulder as he pulled open the driver's side door. "I can smell your brother on you, and it's making me sick."

With that parting shot delivered, he left. Sam stayed against the wall, the rough surface of the bricks biting into his back, and bleakly watched the car's headlights flare to life, back up, and turn to go down the road. They dwindled into the distance. His father was probably going to get breakfast from someplace on the other side of town, in order to give himself time to cool off.

Honestly, Sam felt like he just wanted to curl up and die. But somehow, he found the strength to straighten up, push off the wall, and trudge back into the motel room. The pipes were whining when he opened the door, and water was still running in the bathroom. Dean wasn't finished showering yet.

Of course this would be the first day in months that he decided to take a long, drawn-out shower. Instead of his usual five-minute scrub-and-rinse. Sam felt a surge of bitterness rise in his chest, then immediately tried to tamp it back down. It was a good thing that Dean hadn't come out of the bathroom and gone looking for him. It was a good thing that Dean was oblivious. Sam'd managed to protect him from their father's anger.

In the bedroom, Sam looked at the bed that he and Dean had spent the night together in, the one they'd had sex on top of not too long ago, and couldn't suppress a full-body shudder as his skin crawled. He sat down on the other bed to pull off his jeans, which hadn't been slept in. It was still made from yesterday morning, covers and sheets pulled taut with his dad's military efficiency.

One he was fully naked again, Sam just sat there on the bed for a few seconds. He could feel Dean's come inside of him, and it seemed to burn like acid. An unavoidable reminder of how wrong it was to have it there.

The water turned off in the bathroom. Sam heard Dean walking around on the linoleum with wet feet, and then a towel _whish_ ed off the rack. He lifted his head as the door opened and his older brother stepped out, brush cut slicked down against his skull with water and a worn towel knotted around his waist like a terrycloth kilt. He raised both eyebrows when he saw Sam.

"Oh, hey, you're up," he greeted. "What're you doin' over there on Dad's bed?"

"Uh..." Sam glanced down at the mattress he was sitting on, and tried to kick his shocked brain into thinking up a believable excuse. "I was...hot."

Dean shrugged. "Okay."

_Can't believe he bought that. Idiot._

Twenty-two-year-old Sam admonished himself for the thought almost as soon as he'd had it. Dean was just used to Sam automatically telling him the truth, he reasoned.

But still. Would it've killed him to ask if something was wrong?

"Once you've cooled down..." Dean walked over to his duffel bag, untying the towel and using it to scrub some of the moisture out of his hair. It gave Sam a casual view of his nakedness, and his stomach rolled uncomfortably at the sight of the dick that'd been inside him so recently. That their father _knew_ had been inside him. "Wanna try and see if we can fit in a quickie before Dad gets in?"

"No," Sam blurted instantly. For a second, his vision skewed, and he thought that he was going to puke right then and there. Just the idea of their dad walking in on the two of them going at it again was enough to make him violently physically ill.

"Hey." Dean gave him a serious look, tossing the towel onto their bed. _Sam's_ bed. Sam was supposed to be sleeping there alone. "You okay?"

This was his chance to tell him. But he couldn't bring himself to. A piece of him wasn't sure that Dean would even understand the severity of what'd happened.

_He should've pushed...why didn't he push? If he could tell that something was wrong?_

Twenty-two-year-old Sam struggled to steer his thoughts away from that dark direction, to stay strong, but he couldn't stop himself from wondering.

_Was it because he didn't really care?_

"Yeah," nineteen-year-old Sam said quietly, rubbing a hand over his face. It gave him a cover to look away from Dean. "I think I'm starting to get a headache."

"Oh." Frowning, Dean crouched to dig some clothes out of his duffel. His suggestive demeanor was gone, instantly replaced by one of concern. "Think it's from staring at books all night?"

"Wouldn't surprise me," Sam replied. Out of the blue, he was hit with an overwhelming need to clean himself. He suddenly felt as horribly filthy as he would've if he'd spent an hour swimming through a soup of entrails and raw sewage (which he'd actually done once, unfortunately. When some ghouls or something had nested in the leaky basement of a house in New Orleans). He stood up on shaky legs. "I'm - I'm gonna go shower now."

"Okay. Probably a good idea," Dean agreed, standing up in order to pull on a pair of boxers. "Go ahead and lay down again when you get out; we need to nip this in the bud, case Dad wants us to interview witnesses or something today." Sam stumbled past him. Dean didn't comment on the wide berth he gave him. "I'll get breakfast. You should eat something."

"Thanks," Sam mumbled. He didn't even think about telling him that their father was already getting breakfast, since that would mean explaining when and why he'd talked to him. He wasn't bothered by the idea of wasting food, either. Which was a good indication of how out of it he was at the moment.

In the bathroom, Sam turned the light off and closed the door behind him. He hesitated, then bit his lip, squeezed his eyes shut, and gingerly locked it, too. He wouldn't put it past Dean to get in with him, just to make sure he was okay. He'd mean well, and he'd leave immediately if Sam freaked out, but he just couldn't handle that right now. He'd rather not have to give a reason for a freak-out, either.

Sam turned the water on, nudging the handle to the left until the spray was just as hot as he could stand. Maybe a little past it, but that was fine. He stepped in, wincing at the shock of the scalding water hitting his skin, which was still cold from being outside. Then he reached for the soap.

It was an all-in-one, to save money and space. All three Winchesters used it: a big plastic bottle full of body wash, shampoo, and, supposedly, conditioner. Given how dry his hair was, though, Sam had doubts about that last one.

He popped the cap off and squeezed a silver dollar-sized amount into the palm of his hand. He slathered it between his legs very first, since that was where he felt dirtiest. He rubbed with one hand until he felt bubbles popping up on his skin and in his pubic hair, using the other to grab a washcloth that'd been hung over the curtain rod to dry. He didn't start breaking down until he switched over to scrubbing with that.

It started out firm, but not too bad. With just a few seconds, though, Sam was scrubbing at his crotch and the crack of his ass with enough force to rip out some of the hair growing there by its roots. He moved up to his stomach when the skin started burning, but didn't calm down. If anything, the panic that'd been steadily creeping up on him just got worse.

Sam's biceps ached and his eyes stung as he furiously washed himself. He was only vaguely aware that he was crying; mostly, he was just focused on his goal. He had to get every last trace of Dean's scent off of himself before their father came back.

He squeezed more soap into his hands when the suds ran out, then rubbed it onto his body. He gritted his teeth against the sting that came when it ran into the areas he'd already scrubbed raw with the washcloth. Then he went back to work.

Sam wasn't really sure how long it took before he finally started to feel clean, but when he came out of the intensely-focused state he'd been in, the water raining down on him was noticeably cooler. He ached, and his skin hurt. He'd taken at least the first layer off everywhere he could remember Dean touching him in the last twelve hours.

And some part of him suspected that, maybe, it still wasn't enough. That his dad might still be able to tell what he'd done just from his smell.

Any more, though, and he'd start bleeding. That'd be hard to explain to Dean. So Sam squeezed the washcloth dry, hung it back up, and shut off the water. He stepped out of the tub and grabbed a towel to dry himself with.

He came out of the bathroom with it clutched almost defensively to his chest, so that it covered him, and looked warily around the bedroom. All the lights were off, and it was quiet. Dean must've left. Realizing that made Sam relax by a fraction of a degree. It was just too much work to interact with his older brother right now - pretending nothing had happened was a massive strain.

Once he was sure that he was alone, Sam hung his towel up to dry in the bathroom and made his way to his backpack. He stepped into the boxers that he pulled out of it and tugged them up around his hips, then did the same with a fresh pair of jeans. He didn't really feel like putting yesterday's pair back on. Kneeling next to the bag, he put on a T-shirt, and a sweater over that, since it was so cold outside.

He was fully dressed now. Sam sat there for a second, hesitating, then dug down through the contents of his backpack. All the way to the bottom, until he touched the familiar rectangle of stiff paper. An envelope. He must've pulled it out over a hundred times during the last year, when nobody was around, and he did it again now.

Sam hadn't told anybody about what was in the envelope. Not even Dean, because he didn't know how he'd react to it. Only Uncle Bobby, who had forwarded it to Sam despite being on the outs with his father, knew. Bobby's house must be listed as Sam's permanent residence in some database, somewhere, because that was where the envelope had shown up.

It was a full-ride scholarship offer from Stanford University, in California. It was academic, based on his grades. It was everything Sam had ever wanted for himself in the future, dreamed of in guilty, secret fantasies: a normal life, a job that wasn't life-threatening, a real place in society. The only reason he hadn't taken it last year and just dealt with his father's reaction was because he didn't know if Dean would agree to come with him or not.

Figuring he'd need time to convince him, Sam had called the admissions office (the number had been in the letter) and asked if he could defer. The answer was yes - but only for a year. In other words, if he didn't take the offer and attend school this upcoming fall semester, it would expire.

Sam had never brought it up, though. He wasn't sure how to start off the conversation, or how to convince Dean to drop everything and run away with him. In the back of his mind, he'd pretty much talked himself into believing that he had plenty of time and always would. So Dean had no idea.

It'd be so easy. Sam fingered the flap of the envelope where it was tucked into the body, staring down at it without fully seeing it. He could leave without any warning, contact his father later to let him know that he and Dean shouldn't tear up the country looking for him, because he was fine. Just at school. Telling his dad that he'd turned his back on the life would be a pain in the ass, but he was sure that it would hurt less than telling Dean. And John might even be proud of Sam, putting so much distance between himself and his older brother.

Maybe that was the right decision here. To take off and leave everything behind forever - his sexual relationship with Dean especially. Getting lambasted by their father had brought up all of Sam's old doubts about it. More things he'd never really gotten around to sharing with Dean. If what they had was really okay just because they loved each other, if it was healthy, if they actually needed it. Maybe their dad walking in on the two of them was the best thing that could've happened.

Sam bit his lip for the second time. It was getting sore. He dug a hole through his backpack again, and put the envelope back in its customary place at the bottom. He closed his eyes and heaved a sigh through his nose as he covered it back up.

It was only January. He had months to make a decision, no matter what it might end up being.

He needed to think about it.

* * *

Early November, 2005

* * *

It felt like Sam's whole soul was tingling when he tumbled back out of the memory after it'd reached its conclusion. Like a limb that'd fallen asleep - or at least had a little electricity forced through it. Having been electrocuted a couple of times before, Sam was familiar with the sensation.

Lucy caught him in her smoke. Otherwise, he probably would've fallen all the way down to the soles of his feet, too numb to catch himself. He squirmed at her touch, but couldn't pull away.

The sick feeling of the demon being in contact with his soul wasn't as strong as it'd used to be. He wondered why that was.

_All done?_ Lucy crooned. It felt like she was cradling him like a baby, but since he had no real substance and couldn't see anything in here, he couldn't tell for sure. _My, you were in there a long time, Sammy. That one must have really drawn you in. Made you relive it in real time._

Sam was too exhausted, deep in his essence, to reply to that. Not that he would've necessarily replied anyway. Talking to Lucy was just one pitfall after another.

_So what'd you think of that memory?_ the demon went on. _I'm honestly curious. You know, it was buried way down deep, but it had feelers stretching all the way up to the very tip-top of your consciousness. Influencing you. It wouldn't surprise me if that was where that construct of your father was born._

Maybe to remind Sam what she was talking about (as if he could forget), Lucy flipped the latch on the mental cage that held that construct, as she called it. Immediately, John Winchester's angry, booming thought-voice echoed through Sam's body.

_What the hell are you doing, letting this thing push you around like this?_ he demanded. _Are you just completely helpless? Are you waiting for Dean to come save you? If he hasn't figured it out by now, he's not going to. And you shouldn't even be anywhere near him. You know exactly what kinda sickness you two bring out in each other. You -_

Abruptly, Lucy silenced it (him?) with a touch, and put it away again. Sam had clenched up into a ball, trying to make himself as small as possible. Kind of like what he'd been doing when he hunched and cowered against those cold bricks while his father yelled at him, going on three years ago now.

Lucy hadn't brought that fake, abusive version of Sam's dad out in...well, probably only a couple of days, but it felt like much longer. God, he hated that thing, even though he'd been the one to make it in the first place. It hadn't been on purpose, though. And he'd been hoping that the demon had moved on.

_Anyway,_ Lucy continued, like she hadn't just released yet another onslaught of psychological torment against Sam's freshly-wounded soul. _As soon as I found that memory, I just_ knew _it was something you had to see as soon as possible._

_I remember,_ Sam responded quietly, against his better judgement. _You didn't have to make me live through it again._ Almost everything about that awful night - or morning, rather, he supposed - was burned into the tissue of his brain, and probably would be until he died. Especially after this.

_I did, actually. Seeing as it's painfully obvious that you've forgotten just about everything you learned from it,_ Lucy replied. Her voice had a note of exasperation in it, like she was explaining something that should've been simple to an extremely slow child. _I mean, look at you. Doing just about everything your father told you not to. Letting Dean touch you, kiss you, sleep next to you. You even took a shower with him, didn't you? Right before I found you two again? What do you think your daddy would have to say about that?_

Sam remained silent, knowing exactly what he'd have to say. Going through that memory again had left no doubt of it in his mind.

_You need to remember,_ Lucy said. _This is therapy - I'm helping you._ Sam couldn't even hope to hold back a mental snort at that. Lucy didn't respond to it. _All those things your father said to you that morning rang true, didn't they? And remember how you felt when you realized that he knew what you and your brother had been up to. Would you really have felt like that if you hadn't been doing something to be ashamed of? Something completely and fundamentally wrong?_

Sam would've turned away from her, if he'd had any idea how. Incest (that was what they'd had, he wasn't afraid of the label) was only wrong when somebody was getting hurt. And that hadn't been true for him or Dean.

_Oh,_ Lucy said, sounding surprised, and Sam silently groaned with the realization that she'd read his mind again. _But...you_ did _get hurt, didn't you, Sammy? Your dad hurt you, confronting you like that. And keeping that secret for months and months -_ protecting _Dean - just about made you sick, didn't it? It festered inside you. It was too much._

Sam tried to remind himself that this was just another one of the demon's mind games. Part of her effort to punish he and Dean from exorcising her from Lucas Moon. But, unfortunately, what she'd just said was true. Carrying that burden while living side-by-side with Dean had been one of the most difficult things he'd ever done. He'd had to shut down all of his brother's affections in order to keep them both safe from their father's wrath. And before too long, resentment had set in.

_There you go,_ Lucy praised, sounding satisfied. _It's all coming back, isn't it? How hard it was. How right you realized your father had been. And Dean was just completely clueless the whole time, wasn't he?_

_That wasn't his fault,_ Sam ground out. _I didn't tell him._

_Right, because you thought he wouldn't be able to handle it,_ Lucy agreed. _Knowing exactly how disgusting your relationship was was your cross to bear. But after a while, you started hating Dean for being so fragile. Didn't you?_

_No,_ Sam lied. Lucy didn't call him out on it, though. Maybe because it was so obvious.

From an early age, Sam had assumed that he was smarter than Dean, and that he'd probably always be burdened with knowing more than his brother did. For example, he'd been painfully aware of just how far outside normal their little family was, and of all the nasty things the other kids were saying behind their backs at their latest school. That'd been bad, especially because Dean just didn't seem to be able to understand what the big deal was when Sam told him about it.

But knowing that their father knew about them, and also exactly how he felt about it, had definitely been Sam's heaviest load to carry. He'd wanted to tell Dean, but he hadn't let himself. (No, he honestly hadn't been able to, because Dean was too weak.) Because it hurt, he'd needed someone to blame, and that someone just happened to be Dean. Dean kept on trying to rope Sam back into the relationship he'd decided he had to shut down. He didn't have any way of knowing why Sam needed to put distance between the two of them, but every time he reached out, it was unimaginably irritating anyway. So Sam treated Dean like it was his fault, how badly he was feeling. Even though a little part of him knew full well that it wasn't fair.

(Of course it was fair. Dean was older, he knew better. He should've nipped it in the bud before it got anywhere near as far as it ended up going. He should've protected Sam from their father. He should've figured out what had happened.)

_Of course it was fair,_ Lucy said, echoing the ugly, intrusive thought - Sam had been having a lot of those recently. _To blame your brother, I mean. Even if what was between you two was completely unhealthy - and it was - he should have made more of an effort to salvage it. You were acting_ so _out of character for so long. It was practically criminal of him, not to push as hard as he could to find out what was wrong with you._

Having thought exactly the same thing himself, Sam could only stay silent.

_Why do you suppose he left you alone like that?_ Lucy asked. _Except for trying to initiate sex practically every other day, I mean. Was he just too stupid to notice how much you'd changed? Maybe he didn't know you well enough to pick up on it - though that one points to some severe psychological issues on his part, since he's been living within feet of you since he was four._ She hummed thoughtfully. _Oh, I've got another option. Was he simply not invested enough in you or the emotional side of your relationship to care why you were behaving differently?_

That was so eerily similar to a thought that Sam had had earlier that it struck him all the way down to the core of his being. He tried to screw himself shut against Lucy and her thought-voice. _Leave me alone._

(Dean didn't come to visit him at Stanford. He didn't even call. She was right - he wasn't interested. He didn't care.)

_I won't,_ Lucy replied gleefully. _Not when you're making such excellent progress, Sammy. And not until you admit that almost all of your problems are Dean's fault. Just look at how screwed up you are right now, Sammy. Look how easy it is to trace it back to your brother._

Sam burrowed, trying to find a place to escape from Lucy and his own treacherous thoughts. But everywhere he went was just filled with more black smoke.

_Admit that it was a mistake to let him try to rekindle your relationship,_ Lucy said. _Admit that you're better off without him._

Sam, a battered and broken thing currently contracted so that he was smaller than his own heart, huddled miserably at the bottom of his torso. He didn't want Dean dead or disabled, like Lucy did. But only bad things had happened since they'd gotten back together. Sam had found himself in the middle of a slow psychological meltdown, his girlfriend had left him, he'd gotten possessed.

He was just ready to stop hurting. He'd do whatever it took to make that happen.

_Maybe...you're right._


	31. Chapter Thirty-one

For the first time, Dean was actually glad that he and Sam were in separate rooms.

He couldn't've done this in front of him. It would've been dangerous if he was possessed, and if he wasn't...well, it still would've been dangerous, just in a completely different way. If the two of them had still been sharing a room, Dean wasn't sure what he would've done. He felt like he was too frazzled right now to think of an excuse to leave right after he got there. Maybe sometimes things worked out for a reason.

Dean bit back a bitter laugh as soon as that last thought crossed his mind. He must really be out of it, because he knew way better than that. He'd been hunting for more than long enough to be aware that there was no higher power, and that the only kind of luck floating around out there was bad. Pretty much his entire life was proof of that.

He was alone in his room. Wet, troubled, separated from Sam by a thin wall and what felt like a million miles of emotional distance. Time to make good use of what Minthe had told him and see if he could solve what was currently the biggest problem in his life. Dean sank onto the foot of the hard, dirty motel bed, pulled out his cell phone (which had thankfully survived the rain), and found the number he'd used to get a hold of Bobby last time. He hit the "call" button and brought it up to his ear.

After five rings, Dean figured that Bobby probably wasn't in. The guy was old as dirt and his house was pretty good-sized, but hunting had kept him limber and he could still book it when he wanted to. He wouldn't be that slow about getting to the phone unless he couldn't hear it ringing. Dean lowered his cell from his ear.

Before he could hang up, though, there was a _click_ and Bobby's voice, unmistakable, asked, "That you, Dean?"

Surprised, Dean pressed the phone to his ear again. "Lucky guess."

"Lucky, my ass," Bobby replied smartly. "You were the first person to call me on this phone in over a year. Don't take a genius to make an assumption when it rings again." There was a pause, and Dean heard ice cubes clicking against glass. Bobby was drinking something on the rocks. That sure sounded good right about now. "What'd you call for? You didn't find your daddy, did you?"

"No," Dean answered before heaving a sigh. A little bit of that guilt came back. "He's still missing. I just needed your advice on something."

"Stumped on a case again?"

"No." Dean thought about it. A demon wearing Sam would technically be a case, even if it was a case that hit a little too close to home. He didn't know for sure yet that that was what was going on, though. "Not exactly. I guess." He cleared his throat, getting an inkling that this would be a bitch to explain. "It's about Sam."

"Does he wanna go back to school?" Bobby asked bluntly.

"No." That was wrong, Dean realized after he said it. Sam had just recently asked him to take him back to Stanford - but Dean felt like that was more because he wanted to get away from him than because he actually wanted to go back to school. "I mean, yes, but - "

"Let him," Bobby interrupted. His tone was flat and no-nonsense. "No 'buts,' Dean. You go on and drive him all the way back to California if he needs you to. I know he's your brother and I know John's out there blowin' in the wind somewhere, but that kid's been a square peg in a round hole since he first started hunting, and _you_ know that."

"But - "

"No _'buts,'_ " Bobby repeated firmly. "Plain as day you love him to death, so you can do what's right for him."

As soon as Bobby said that, Dean knew - with a certainty that ran as deep as his sexuality - that what was right for Sam was being with him. If he honestly wanted to go back to Palo Alto, then Dean would go with him. The way he should have two years ago. He'd give up hunting for him; maybe even give up looking for their dad. After all, back in the fall of 2003, Dad had made it perfectly clear that Dean could choose to either be on good terms with him or to love Sam as more than a brother.

Sam had been on the other side of the country, then. The choice'd sucked, but it'd seemed easy. It seemed easy now, too, with Sam just on the other side of a wall, and it didn't suck in the slightest.

Sam pulling away from him with all his might, though. That was completely out of character. Nothing had triggered it. What Minthe had said cemented it in Dean's mind: something was wrong. And that was exactly what he told Bobby, pulling out his own no-nonsense tone for the job.

Bobby was silent for a few seconds after that, and as hard as he tried, Dean couldn't read anything in it. Like whether or not he believed him. Eventually, Bobby cleared his throat. With an uncharacteristically gentle tone, he asked, "Are you a hundred percent sure about that, boy?"

"Yes." Dean had been over that so many times himself that he didn't have to stop and think about it for so much as a heartbeat before giving his firm answer.

"All right, then." Much to Dean's relief, Bobby sounded more than halfway satisfied. "You're John's son, and whatever else he might've done, he raised you to be a good hunter."

Dean frowned, not really sure what Bobby had meant by that. He let it go, though. This was about Sam, not Dad.

"So I doubt you'd be seeing monsters where they ain't, even when it comes to your brother," Bobby continued. "If you say you're sure, that's good enough for me." There was a creak of wood. He must've sat down. "Tell me what's been going on, and what you think is wrong with Sam."

Dean did. He went through Sam's weird behavior, starting when they were wrapping up their ghost hunt in Colorado. He left out the sex stuff, of course, but he thought the argument was fairly convincing even without it. He made sure to tell Bobby what Minthe had said, too. And he'd never really been a "share'n'care" type of guy, but he had to admit that spilling the whole mess to another person was something of a relief. Even if Bobby's only response was the occasional grunt of understanding while he talked.

When he was finished, he heard sounds that let him know that Bobby was taking a long pull from whatever he was drinking. Then he said, "Sounds like a demon to me."

"Right? That's what I was thinking, too," Dean agreed, feeling vindicated.

"Demonic possession cases are rare, though," Bobby told him.

"I know that."

"Then why in the _hell_ haven't you tested him yet to make sure?" Bobby demanded.

"Well...I..." Dean slowly pulled a hand down his face. "I was afraid it'd make him mad, if he figured out that I thought he was only acting like this 'cause he was possessed. Y'know, if it turned out that he...didn't actually have anything in him. And that'd just push him away even more." Dean sucked his lower lip into his mouth. Bobby didn't say anything, so he weakly tacked on, "I don't wanna l...I don't want him to leave, Bobby."

Bobby sighed heavily, then muttered something under his breath that sounded like "God give me strength." Then he said, "Forgot how much of a pain in the ass it is to deal with you two." Before Dean, stung, could reply to that, he plowed on. "He's _already_ leaving, Dean. You don't have anything to lose. Grow some balls and stop pissin' away what little time you might have left to save him, if it _is_ a demon - are you twenty-six or just six?"

Dean was momentarily too shocked to get so much as a single word out. Bobby took advantage of that, continuing in a voice that was only a hair softer.

"If you're real serious about being a pussy, though," he said, "I'll tell you what you can do. You said you and Sam are in separate rooms?"

"Yeah." Dean was still too bowled over to do much more than answer simple questions. It'd been a while since anybody (besides Sam) had chewed him out like that, and for some reason, he hadn't been expecting it from Bobby.

"The ceilings white?"

Dean looked up. "Yeah."

"You got any white chalk in that armory of yours?"

"Yeah." They used it to mark out runes and summoning circles when the hunt called for it.

"You able to say anything besides 'Yeah'?" Bobby asked dryly.

"Y - " Dean just barely managed to catch himself. "What am I gonna do with chalk?" He was pretty sure that that wasn't one of the things that hurt demons.

"There should be a book in your trunk," Bobby replied. "Pretty old, has a medieval-looking demon on the cover. It's full of lore about 'em. I gave it to your dad some years back, and no matter how he felt about me, I can't see him throwing it out."

"Okay." Dean had never seen the book that Bobby was talking about, but that didn't mean anything. There was all kinds of stuff buried under the initial layer of weapons and charms in the Impala's boot.

"It's got a symbol in it," Bobby continued. "Thing called a devil's trap. Looks like a pentagram in a closed circle, with some simple runes in the closed spaces. You'll know it when you see it. You wait 'til Sam leaves his room, then go in there and draw that thing on the ceiling just inside the door. If he's possessed, he'll be trapped as soon as he walks into it. If he's not...well, it's white chalk on white paint, so chances are he won't even notice it."

Dean licked his lips, mouth suddenly gone dry. "And what do I do if it turns out he really is possessed?"

"That same book?" Bobby asked. "There's a decent exorcism ritual in it. Never let me down."

"Okay," Dean repeated. He hadn't realized his voice was shaking before until he heard how steady it came out this time. Geez, that was embarrassing. It felt good to have a plan, though. And an ally.

"You can do that?" Bobby asked, a little cautiously. When Dean assured him that of course he could, he sighed again. "All right. Good luck, then, boy. And..." He hesitated. "Go ahead and give me a call when it's all over, okay? No matter which way things turn out. I wanna know."

"I will," Dean promised. He'd already been planning on it.

"And Dean?" Bobby asked him. "If this ain't a demon...if it's all Sam...you gotta promise me you'll let him go. He's wanted an apple-pie life for almost as long as I've known him."

That one was a little harder to get out. A lot harder, actually. Dean swallowed. If this was "all Sam," as Bobby had said, then he couldn't drop out of hunting and settle down with him in Palo Alto. Because it would mean that Sam really did hate him enough to never want to see him again. Dean would be all alone. Unless he eventually dug up Dad, which would be one shitty consolation prize.

"I promise," he finally managed, his voice rough. He could do what was best for Sam - even if it wound up killing Dean himself.

"Attaboy." Sounding sympathetic, Bobby wished him luck again before hanging up. Dean ended the call a few seconds later.

He sat there for a while, then dropped his cell phone onto the bed next to him with a heavy sigh. He put his elbows on his knees and rested his face in his hands, pressing on his eyelids with his fingertips in order to block out all the light.

Dean was actively hoping that his little brother was possessed by a demon. Which would mean that he'd been silently screaming for over a week now, tortured by his own helplessness. That couldn't be right or normal. Maybe Dean should just face the fact that he was a selfish bastard, and try to get over it by driving Sam back to his college and leaving forever without another complaint.

He couldn't stomach that idea for more than a couple of seconds, though. If he didn't at least try, there was a chance that he was condemning Sam to a lifetime of misery. And, ironically, it'd be because he was trying to do right by him. He'd always wonder, and a distracted hunter wasn't exactly a useful one. Mostly because they had a nasty tendency to end up dead within a month.

Dean shoved his phone back in his pocket, feeling stronger and calmer than he had all week. He knew it was because he'd made a decision, he was going to act on it, and he could take any consequences of it. Just like it'd felt good to have a plan, it felt good to be doing something.

As he stood up and headed for the door, he remembered how badly he'd wanted to talk to Dad earlier. Ask him for his advice. He wondered, idly, what it would've been.

Just based on the conversation they'd had around this time two years ago, he suspected that Dad would've encouraged him and Sam to go their separate ways just to get them away from each other. Strong possibility of possession be damned.

* * *

Early September, 2003

* * *

Sam was gone.

With as many times as Dean had repeated that to himself over the past few weeks, it should've sunk into his head. Unfortunately for him, though, it seemed like it hadn't. He was still confused and a little panicked in that first second right after he woke up, wondering why he was the only one in the bed. He still got excited when Dad announced he was taking off for a few days - and then got crushed by memory. He still looked over the fiction sections for interesting books (on his brother's behalf, of course) when he went to the library for research. Maybe his mind was just too numb with grief to fully process what'd happened.

Sam wasn't dead. Dean was deeply ashamed of it, but in one of his most painful moments, he'd thought that it might be better if he was. Then he wouldn't have been purposefully abandoned.

Sam was at college. Dean hadn't even been aware that he'd been applying to schools - much less that they'd been responding to him because they wanted him. Sammy was a hot-ticket item to them, apparently. He was smart, and his grades were good, but Dean hadn't realized that all those A+s had been enough to win him a full-ride scholarship. Room, board, tuition, everything. At Stanford University.

The only reason that Dean knew all of this now was Sam's call, which'd come a couple of days after he'd walked out of their motel room with his backpack, apparently so angry he hadn't even been able to talk, and just...disappeared. The call had come on Dad's cell phone, not Dean's. The two of them had been going out of their minds with worry, looking every place they could think of to look and calling every contact they had.

Dean was pretty sure that he'd been more frantic than his dad. Things had been...weird...between him and Sam since January. Sam seemed to whip back and forth between two extremes. Sometimes, every time Dean tried to start something - kissing, holding, anything - he'd get shot down. Sam would make excuses or laugh it off, at first. Then he'd wordlessly push Dean away. Then he'd start snapping at him, saying things that cut Dean to the bone when he got near him. Then, once Dean had stopped making an effort, Sam would become frantic. Throw himself at him. Want to be touched as much as possible while they were having some of the roughest, most intense sex they'd ever had. And then he'd bolt as soon as they were done, not looking Dean in the eye, before either of them had the chance to say anything. Then he'd go back to being all cold and distant. Dean hadn't told Sam he loved him in months.

He couldn't leave things like that. He was cold all the way into the core of his body when he thought about Sam having died or just dropped off the face of the Earth.

So when he'd called, it'd been a huge relief. For about two seconds. Then Dad had started yelling, just pissed beyond belief that Sam'd left the two of them and the job behind for a normal life, and Sam yelled back. Even Dean, sitting on the other side of the room, could hear him.

The only good thing was that it ended up being a lot shorter than his father and brother's shouting matches usually were. Sam could end it at any time just by hanging up, which he did immediately after Dad had told him that he was dead to both of them from here on out. Dean flinched, hearing that. _He_ definitely didn't feel that strongly about it, but there wasn't anything he could do: Dad had already spoken for him.

After Sam abruptly ended the call, Dad held his cell phone in his hand and just stared down at it for a while with burning eyes. His chest heaved as he sucked in deep, angry breaths. Eventually, he looked up at Dean, who swallowed involuntarily when he did.

"Suppose you're gonna leave me now, too, huh?" he growled out. With the way it sounded, he might as well have been talking through a mouth full of acid and broken glass.

Dean didn't say anything at first. Even right then, when he was too deep in the situation to understand everything that was going on, he'd known he had a choice. That this was one of those pivotal moments.

It'd be easy to say yes. Not so easy to grab his duffel bag and walk out of the motel, though. If he knew his father, there was a good chance he'd attack him - and not to stop him, just 'cause he'd be so pissed. But if he could get away from him, the rest would be easy, too. Dean didn't have anywhere to go but to Sam, and he knew exactly where he was. State, city, campus. He was sure he could get his room number from the front office or whatever the hell it was that a college had.

He didn't say yes, though. Sam had called Dad, not him. Their relationship hadn't really deserved to be called that for well over six months. Dean didn't know what he'd do if he cut his ties with Dad and then Sam just slammed the door on him when he showed up in California. Or screwed him hard enough to leave him swaying on his feet, and then threw him out and slammed the door on him.

"No," Dean replied quietly. He'd been checking their ammo clips for fullness and functionality when Dad's cell phone had started ringing, taking a break from the Sam-hunt, and he went back to it now. Mostly because it meant he could turn away. For some reason, he hadn't been able to stand looking at Dad right then.

Dean knew Sam had been seesawing between being a frigid, nasty little pain in the ass and a no-strings-attached sex maniac for a while now, and that it should probably be some sort of weight off his shoulders that he wasn't around to yell and glare and confuse him anymore. The things that he kept feeling, though, like cramps in an arm or a leg that'd gotten cut off, let him know that a big part of him was only remembering all the good times and none of the bad.

So it hurt.

So he looked for things to ease that hurt, or at least numb it.

So he'd come here: a dive bar on the opposite side of town from the motel where he and Dad were staying. The lights were so full of dead bugs it created a dim twilight effect inside, it was more momentum than electricity keeping the useless ceiling fan slowly spinning, and at least one of the other patrons hadn't seen the inside of a shower stall in about a month. Dean didn't care about any of that, though, since he had an eighth of a bottle of the cheapest whiskey this place stocked in his stomach. He was feeling warm and off-balance, sitting on the barstool. And good, because he had plenty of money to buy more. And his real(ish) ID, too, since he was twenty-four.

In fact, he was pretty sure it was time for another round. He laid a few bills down on the bar and tapped them with two fingers, catching the bartender's attention. "'Nother one."

The guy, who was probably around Dad's age and had a burn scar on one cheek, eyed him for a second. Whatever he saw must've satisfied him that Dean wasn't about to throw up, pass out, or start a fight, because he came over and poured him another shot.

"You can sure hold your liquor, for a young guy," he commented. In a place like this, there was only a flat approval in his voice. No regret or concern.

"Lotsa practice," Dean replied, using the tips of his fingers to pick the smudged, chipped glass up by its lip.

The door behind him opened, but he didn't bother looking over his shoulder. Lots of people had come and gone, none of them very interesting. He focused on his whiskey instead, swirling it with little flicks of his wrist and watching the way that the shaft of fading sunlight coming through the door brought out the amber color.

The door closed, the light vanished, and his drink got dull again. He tossed it back and grimaced against the burn in his throat as it moved down his chest and into his stomach, then slammed the glass onto the wood of the bar. He almost didn't hear the heavy bootsteps coming up on him over the buzzing in his head. He didn't pay any real attention to them until their owner dropped onto the stool next to him.

Dean turned to glare at the guy, planning to give him an earful. The whole damn bar was practically deserted, and he had to sit right there? What the hell was his problem? It was almost as bad as going for the urinal right next to somebody when he was trying to take a piss in an otherwise-empty bathroom.

The words died in Dean's throat, though, when he got a look at him. He might be over the legal limit, but he'd have to splash the stuff in his eyes before he wouldn't recognize his own father.

"Thought you were gonna hit the library," Dad said. In one smooth motion of his hand, he gave the bartender a twenty, pointed to Dean's empty glass, and raised an index finger. The bartender set a shot of the same cheap whiskey that Dean had been drinking in front of him a minute later, and Dean felt uncharacteristically bitter. Dad never could set foot in a place that sold booze without wetting his whistle.

God, he sounded like Sam. Like he needed any more proof that he was hanging on to every last piece of him he still had with both hands.

"To do research," Dad continued, picking up his glass.

"Yeah, well. I lied." Dean was just drunk enough to send all his respect for - and fear of - Dad out the window. Maybe that was why he tacked on a bratty, "Obviously."

He wasn't looking at Dad at the moment, but he could feel him glaring at him. There was real heat behind it, heat that promised trouble if he kept pressing his luck like this, but Dean didn't care. Eventually, Dad growled out, "Don't get smart with me."

Dean didn't reply to that, pretty sure that he already had. He asked for a refill, got it. Nursing the crappy whiskey in tiny sips, he heard Dad knock his own back in one go and hiss bitterly through his teeth.

"Fuck, that's just god-awful," he muttered in a low voice. Dean agreed, but he wasn't drinking this stuff for its flavor.

After that, Dad waited in silence until Dean had finished his drink. Once he'd shaken the last drop outta the glass and onto his tongue, his father put a hand on his shoulder. It was just firm, no squeezing or digging his fingers in, but Dean could tell that this was a grip he'd have to snap bones to break.

"Let's go," Dad said, standing up. Nobody, no matter what their blood alcohol level was, could've mistaken it for a suggestion.

Dean would've made things difficult if it'd been half an hour earlier, but the truth was that he was ready to leave. His bill was paid up and he was already going to be dealing with a bitch of a hangover tomorrow morning. No reason to keep drinking and add a case of alcohol poisoning to it. So he pushed his empty shot glass away and got off the stool. He must've been drunker than he thought, because Dad's hand on his shoulder was the only thing keeping him upright and walking in a straight line as they headed for the door.

"You gotta stop this, Dean," Dad said once they were outside. He'd come in the Impala (Dean had taken the bus), so now he unlocked it. Dean wondered how he'd found him. It didn't take a psychic to guess he was in a ramshackle bar, but considering this town was crawling with them, picking the right one must've been the result of some top-notch detective work. Or a long process of elimination.

"Stop what?" Dean asked, starting to slur as he climbed into the passenger seat. It took him a couple tries to get the door open, seeing as the sunlight glinting off the chrome handle made his head spin and throb.

_"This,"_ Dad replied, gesturing angrily at pretty much all of Dean after sliding in behind the wheel. "Pining. You've been a hot mess since Sam took off, and I know it's not something you're not aware of. You're drinking like a fish, you're not sleeping, you don't do what I tell you - your head's not in the game." He fixed him with a level hazel stare as he twisted the keys in the ignition, put the car in reverse, and pulled out. "I'm sure I don't have to tell you where that's gonna land you sooner or later, with hunting."

He didn't have to tell him. Dean knew that, in their profession, it was stupid to do even a quarter of what he was doing right now. It was just luck that he hadn't caught a fatal blow yet, courtesy of his own weakness. Or maybe it was because Dad had been watching out for him.

"You gotta stop this," Dad repeated, voice much tighter this time around.

"I know." Dean rested a hand against his pounding forehead and closed his eyes. He _did_ know - he was being a selfish moron, and it was dangerous. Putting an end to it was easier said than done, though.

"And to be perfectly honest, watching it is making me sick," Dad continued. Which was brutal, but not something Dean hadn't expected to hear, so he didn't drop his hand from his face. "You gotta shake this. Get laid - dip your wick in some new ink."

Dean's eyes opened, letting in stabbing rays of light. He couldn't help it, though; he was shocked. What Dad had just said made it sound like he knew what Sam and Dean had...that they had...

"We've got some decent-looking witnesses this time around," Dad continued. "Couple of 'em are even near your age. Take your pick. Might sound callous, but they're grieving - so they'd be more than happy to warm your bed for a night or two."

Dean tried to work some saliva into his dry mouth, which already tasted like he'd been mopping the bottom of a dumpster with his tongue. He didn't want to know how bad the flavor would be by the time he woke up tomorrow morning.

"I don't need a one-night stand," he managed, finally dropping his hand from his face once he could talk properly. "The hell does that have to do with Sam leaving?" He thought that his brother walking out on him would be enough of an explanation for how he was acting, with how tight-knit their little family had been for over twenty years now. No need to get into the sex stuff.

"You mean you two weren't screwing each other?" Dad asked calmly. He was driving them back to the motel, looking at the road and not at Dean. His voice was calm and steady. "I've known for a while now that there're are a lot of hunters out there who're suspicious about my sons. And it was sorta unmistakable, when I saw you and Sam a few months back."

Dean didn't feel drunk anymore. Nothing sobered you up like realizing that your dad knew you'd been having sex with your younger brother. In fact, the only thing he felt at all right now was a cold, shivery sickness in the pit of his stomach. He almost asked Dad to pull over so that he could barf up the whiskey he'd drunk, but what came out of his mouth instead was a weak, "You knew?"

Dad just looked at him. Dean got it: the answer to that question was so obvious that he wasn't going to dignify it with a response.

"How come you didn't say anything?" Dean asked, wondering how long Dad had known about it. How much he'd seen.

"Figured it'd stop on its own," Dad replied. "You're both adults, and I sure as hell didn't raise you to think that something like that was okay, so I assumed it wouldn't be long before at least one of you came to his senses. Especially because it seemed like Sam already wanted out." He gave Dean a quick glance out of the corner of his eye. "Maybe that's why he left us."

The sick feeling got much, much worse when he said that. It was like Dad had slammed on the brakes and sent Dean catapulting into the dashboard, queasy stomach hitting first and hardest. He wasn't sure how he could talk without bringing up a whole lot of dirt-cheap alcohol, but somehow, he pulled it off.

"Did you say something to him?" Dean asked Dad. For a second, the nausea had a couple of companions - protectiveness, and concern.

Slowing down, Dad turned and eyed Dean, who waited for an answer with his hands balled into fists on his denim-covered thighs. After a long second had stretched out, Dad shook his head.

"No," he said. "He left on his own. And as much as it pisses me off that he walked out on all his responsibilities, he probably thought he was doing the right thing. Getting away from you and putting a stop to what was going on."

Dean took his eyes off Dad after that. It wasn't really that he wanted to look away - more like he just couldn't make himself focus on him. It was like he was coated in some kind of visual grease, and Dean's eyeballs slid off him every time he turned them in his direction. He felt numb, the kind of painful lack of feeling that came with getting bodyslammed by something a lot heavier and more solid than he was, or thrown into a wall, or dropped to the ground from more than a few feet above it. His bones ached, and the unpleasant suspicion that he was really hurt bad and just didn't know it yet began automatically oozing its way up from his subconscious.

Was that really it? That was why Sam had stopped...Jesus, Dean was an adult, he could own up to it: Sam had stopped loving him. Dad thought that it was because he'd decided that that was wrong, and that he'd left because it'd eventually festered up to the point where he couldn't even be in the same room as Dean anymore. That meant it hadn't been anything that Dean had done. It'd just come out of the blue.

Dean leaned against the car door, then, eventually, slumped heavily against it. He heard Dad shift in the driver's seat, probably mentally and physically checking himself out of the conversation because he figured that it was over. Dean had never needed a lot of correction when he screwed up. He didn't stray from what he was supposed to be doing very often, and it'd only gotten rarer as he'd gotten older. Dad barely had to do anything to make him straighten up and fly right.

Sam was the one who'd needed to be yelled at for hours before he'd give in and follow orders. And even then, sometimes, it didn't work. The fact that he was merrily attending college right now instead of tracking and killing man-eating monsters was proof enough of that.

Dean closed his eyes. Because he was about two shots away from being facedown on the floor, vertigo hit him almost instantly. The sour, heavy feeling in his stomach tempted him to open his eyes back up and match the sight of movement with the sensation, but he kept his lids clamped firmly together. It was easier to think, this way. The dizziness was just a minor distraction.

Sam was stubborn (something he'd definitely inherited from Dad, which Dean had never been stupid enough to point out to him). Once he'd made up his mind about something, he dug in, and the more deeply he believed in it, the harder it was to get him to budge. If Dean was remembering right, Sam had decided that he liked kissing his brother and didn't give a damn what anybody else thought about the appropriateness of their relationship early on.

Sam was smart. He spent as much time with books as Dean did with his guns and knives, soaking up information like a sponge, but he could also figure things out for himself. He'd never really come out and said as much, but Dean got the feeling that he'd come to a conclusion about their happiness and comfort trumping whatever society said about the boundaries that were supposed to exist between them.

It was pretty unlikely that Sam would go back on his own reasoning and flip his stance around a hundred and eighty degrees without some kind of reason. In Dean's opinion. And that was why he wasn't sure he believed Dad when he told him that he hadn't said anything to Sam.

Dean opened his eyes now and sat up. His vision swam, and he had to swallow way too large a mouthful of something way too bitter. Dad looked at him, briefly. Dean could feel his surprise. He'd probably thought that he'd passed out.

"You didn't talk to Sam." Dean's voice came out flat, making it sound like it wasn't a question. That was okay. "About...us."

"No," Dad replied, sounding irritated. And looking at the road, again, instead of Dean.

"You said you saw us - found out about it - a few months ago," Dean continued. "When? Exactly."

Sam's behavior had first started changing in January. A few months ago.

"Jesus - " Dad took one hand off the wheel and smacked it, angrily, with his palm. The loud noise shivered through Dean's head like his skull was full of Jell-O. Very sensitive Jell-O. "I didn't say a word to him. Never told him I saw you two going at it like a pair of dogs in heat." Now he looked at Dean, _glared_ at him, and Dean could see all the disgust and resentment that he'd been bottling up for months behind that expression. As clearly as if his face'd been made of glass. "Never treated him any different. Never dropped any hints. Just bit my tongue and waited for him or you or the both of you to sort it out and put an end to it - which he _did_. I can't even say how glad I am about that." Dad's arms flexed. Muscles stood out, taut and hostile. Dean could see that even through his shirt - even through his jacket. "I told you. What, d'you think you're so damn good in bed that even _your brother_ wouldn't close his legs without me telling him to?" Another glare. "Because he did. And with how torn up you are, it's pretty clear to me that you didn't have anything to do with that decision. You need to get over all this sooner rather than later."

That hurt. Both the razor-edged words and the straight venom in Dad's voice. Even now, in 2005, Dean could remember how a huge part of him had wanted to just back off then. Lean against the door again, turn his face to the window, close his eyes...do exactly what his father wanted him to and never bring it up again as he tried to forget it.

It would've hurt a lot more, though, if he hadn't still been drunk. What Dad had just spit at him either didn't cut deep enough to stop him from pushing back, or he didn't feel it if it did.

"Okay," Dean said, deciding to go ahead and believe Dad. It wasn't like he could come up with a good reason for him to be lying. "Fine. And maybe you're right. Maybe he's never coming back, 'cause of me and what we did together. Maybe we're never gonna see him again. Maybe he's never even gonna call again." Dean kinda felt like that was a strong possibility, based on how Dad had treated him the last time he'd called them. "But if he does...I don't want you to say anything about this to him."

Dad looked at him without moving his head. They were getting close to their motel. Dean thought, at least. Everything was blurry outside the car, and he wasn't sure how much of that was because of the weird light and how much was because of all the alcohol in his system.

"You said it yourself," Dean continued. "He cut it off. He's done with it and done with me. No need to bring it up."

Dad kept looking at him. Dean, still feeling relatively clearheaded in spite of everything he'd pounded down at the bar, held his gaze.

Even if Dad was right about why Sam had called it quits on pretty much everything, Dean was still his older brother. Nothing and nobody would ever be able to change that. So he had a responsibility to protect him as long as he could. Dean knew how Dad worked, especially when he was mad, and what he might be able to do to Sam with this kind of ammunition. He'd watched the two of them lock horns often enough to be able to figure it out.

Sam would be stressed out enough right now, going to college with a bunch of people he didn't know. Juggling homework and classes and maybe even a normal job, too. He definitely didn't need Dad scolding him into the ground for something that he'd stopped doing over half a year ago.

Dad broke first, looking away. He shook his head, swearing softly under his breath. "You boys. Goddamn."

"What're you talking about?"

"Nothing." He shook his head again. "Fine...I won't talk to him about it. Wasn't planning on it, anyway, but whatever."

The car suddenly came to a stop. The growl of the engine dropped into a soft purr as it idled. Dean peered out the windshield, and the squat, red-brick form of the motel they were crashing at slowly materialized in the fading light.

"Go ahead," Dad said, making a sharp jerk with his chin. He might've been nodding towards the building. "Sleep it off. You're not gonna be any use to me 'til you're sober."

Dean fumbled with the handle until he got the door on his side open. He didn't so much climb out as fall; now that he'd said what he wanted to, he wasn't holding his liquor quite as well. Realizing that the engine was still running, he turned back towards Dad. "You not coming in?"

Dad didn't say anything. And Dean wasn't sure if he meant to imply that he couldn't stand to sleep in the same room as him, but that was what he got out of it.

"Somebody's gotta work the case," Dad said eventually, voice bitter. "I'll come back in the morning and see if you're in any shape to hunt."

"Okay," Dean agreed, feeling heavy and defeated. He started to head for the door, but stopped when Dad spoke up again.

"Dean." He looked at him, but the glare of the golden sunlight off the windshield meant that he couldn't see him. "If I don't say anything to Sam, neither do you. If he ever even talks to you again." Dean heard him throw the car into reverse. "No son of mine fucks his brother."

He leaned across the front seat in order to slam Dean's door, which was still open, before pulling out. Dean watched him drive off and thought about what it would be like if he never came back. If both Sam and Dad left, and he was totally alone.

He almost made it to the bathroom before he started puking.

* * *

Mid-November, 2005

* * *

Dean found the book, and the chalk.

One was buried under a bundle of broken knives. Easily around a thousand dollars' worth of butterflies that wouldn't stay shut and buck knives with snapped blades, junk they'd never gotten around to either fixing or tossing, all wrapped up in a dirty towel. The other was a lot closer to the surface, a bunch of dust and broken sticks in a plastic baggie.

He kept shooting glances at the window that belonged to Sam's room while he was digging, but the cheap, faded blinds stayed closed. He grabbed both Bobby's leather-bound demon book and the plastic bag when he unearthed them and took them back into his own room.

Dean tossed the book on the little round table and then lowered himself into the chair, dropping the bag of chalk next to it. He ignored the clinking; it wasn't like they could get any more broken.

He started flipping through the book, looking for the symbol that Bobby had described to him. He had to be careful not to tear the thin pages. The type was in an old-fashioned font, and he couldn't tell if the book was actually an antique or just made to look like one. Sam might be able to figure it out. Probably not, though. Books were definitely in his wheelhouse, but not figuring out when they'd been printed or bound or whatever.

Not that it mattered, since he didn't plan on asking Sam about this particular book anytime soon.

Dean was startled (that was an understatement, he practically hit the ceiling) by a couple of knocks on the door before he found the devil's circle. Devil's _trap_. That was what it was called.

He glanced over his shoulder, which was pretty much useless. The blinds on his own window were closed, since it was cloudy and rainy outside and the light fixture in the room was way brighter than the sun, currently. And even if they weren't, he wouldn't've been able to see whoever was knocking because the angle was wrong.

It was probably Sam. Even though, lately, Dean didn't know why he'd voluntarily come and find him.

If he was possessed, Dean couldn't let him see the book, and if he wasn't...well, he couldn't be too careful.

Dean stood up and grabbed the book off the table. On impulse, he shoved it under the pillow on his bed - like a kid stashing a borrowed skin mag seconds before his mom walked in. Then he went to the door, deciding not to worry about the chalk.

Sam was on the other side, just like he'd expected. When Dean opened it, he took a couple of shuffling steps back. Which put him out of arm's reach, Dean realized after a second. He couldn't help wondering if it was just to keep plenty of distance between them, or if Sam really thought that he might try to grab him and drag him into the room.

Or if he was possessed and the demon was taking every chance it could to mess with his head.

"I found a case," Sam said.

"Oh. Yeah?" Something in Dean's chest cramped and dropped when he remembered that he'd told Sam he could pick the last case they would work together. This oughta be good. In an effort to look relaxed that he was sure came across as forced, he folded his arms across his chest and leaned against the doorframe.

"Northern California," Sam replied. "Ish. Woman thinks her house is haunted. Keeps feeling hands on her at, uh, compromising times. In bed, in the shower...you get the idea. She's been telling every newspaper, magazine, and blog who'll listen to her all about it."

"Sounds great," Dean deadpanned, "attention whore with a paranormal fetish" instantly popping into his head. This wasn't a real case. He knew it, Sam knew it, but he'd told him he could choose, so there was nothing he could do about it.

"Shouldn't take too long to wrap up," Sam said, sounding like he was agreeing.

They stared at each other. Sam didn't leave, and Dean didn't close the door. He did count to ten before he cleared his throat and spoke up again, though. To give Sam a chance to end the conversation if he wanted.

"Northern California-ish," Dean said, carefully. "Down by Palo Alto?"

Sam nodded, which really just amounted to dipping his chin once. "I didn't want to make you drive too far."

Staring again. Dean was just about to unfold his arms and deal with his feelings in private when Sam added, "I'm gonna eat, and then we should go."

"Okay," Dean agreed, pushing off the doorframe and straightening up. Food. Right. He probably still needed that, didn't he? "Just lemme grab the keys and - "

"I can walk," Sam replied. For the first time, Dean noticed that it had stopped raining. It was still cool outside, but Sam was wearing a jacket.

"Oh. Okay." Dean moved to close the door. Sam moved to walk away, but then hesitated. Almost reluctantly, he asked, "D'you want anything?"

"I'm not hungry," Dean answered honestly. Sam nodded, like that was perfectly normal.

"You should pack up, then," he instructed. "I'll do my stuff when I get back."

He left. Dean closed the door, then had to run his hands along the edge of it to make sure that it was really shut, since he hadn't been able to feel it and there was a roaring in his ears that blocked out the noise and his vision, for some reason, was really blurry all of a sudden. He was fully aware that he'd probably be driving Sam back to Stanford tonight or tomorrow morning, where he'd watch him leave for the very last time.

It took him slightly longer to realize that Sam wandering off to grab a bite to eat meant that he wasn't in his room right now.

Dean's senses cleared. And then he decided that he just really didn't care anymore, because it was all over anyway even if this didn't go tits-up. Worst-case scenario was that he wouldn't have to talk to the crazy ghost lady before he dumped Sam at his precious goddamn school.

That freed him to lunge for his lock picks, the bag of chalk, and Bobby's book.


	32. Chapter Thirty-two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And now the chapter you've all been waiting for!
> 
> Posted literally three months after I put the last one up - and three years after I started the damn thing!
> 
> It's almost twenty thousand words, though, soooo...we cool?

Lucy gloated the whole time she fed Sam's body.

Setting aside all the psychological and emotional abuse for a second, Sam had to admit that she'd taken pretty good care of him while he'd been possessed. He hadn't felt tired or hungry at all, even while tapped into his entire body, so he suspected that she could've kept him going on the sheer energy coming off whatever the hell it was demons were made of. But she'd had him eating three meals a day, she probably kept him better-hydrated than he did himself, and when she tortured him with fake memories at night, she let the meaty parts of his mind sleep. It was entirely possible that most of it was a show for Dean, but at least she was doing it. This whole thing could've been a lot worse in many, many ways.

For example, she could've been sticking around and continuing to tear away at Dean until there was nothing left. But she wasn't. She was taking Sam back to Stanford, he and Dean were never going to see each other again, and then at least Dean would be okay. Sam could handle sharing his body with Lucy for the rest of his life, because of that. The possibility of fifty-plus years of possession was a small price to pay for his older brother's happiness.

Sam had learned all about self-fulfilling prophecies in his Psych class, so he knew that, if he just told himself that enough times, he'd believe it. And he'd forget all about how Dean had had every opportunity to pry him out of this situation and...hadn't.

While doing the meager research that it'd taken to dig up that joke of a case, Lucy had casually mentioned to Sam (who'd still been shaking violently on a spiritual level, after the memory of his father that she'd made him relive) that she thought Dean might actually suspect a possession being behind "his" behavior. He was just too afraid to do anything.

 _Maybe he's afraid of_ damaging _you if he attempts an exorcism, and he thinks it'd be better to let me have you forever. I'd ask if he's always treated you kind of like a porcelain doll...but I've got access to your memories. I know he has._ A tap of Sam's fingers on the track pad brought up the article about the woman who'd been touched by ghosts - and who Sam assumed to be desperately lonely. _I owe you an apology, Sam...I was wrong. You're not a sex object to him: you're just something pretty he can set up on a shelf - or out at a college - and look at and feel proud to own every so often._

 _Well, he's letting you go,_ Lucy was saying now. She had her smoke up against Sam's soul, forcing him into his tongue so he could taste the wilted, stale chef's salad she'd gotten him for lunch, and that smoke felt like it was smiling. _It's completely ruining him - we both know how he feels about food, and he's not hungry? So it's destroying him, but he's doing it anyway. He didn't even fight it._ Lucy put a dry slice of hard-boiled egg in Sam's mouth. _I guess I owe you_ another _apology, Sammy, because I was wrong_ again _. It's just an off day for me. Anyway, I'm not going to kill Dean in front of you, because he's not going to come after you to get his property back. I just don't think he cares enough to do that._

Sam didn't answer. It wasn't an act of defiance like it would've been a week ago, though; he was just too exhausted to say anything. He was tired of feeling sorry for Dean because of how Lucy had been treating him. He was tired of waiting for Dean to rescue him. They'd both been raised as hunters, and Dean hadn't had the two-year downtime that Sam had, so he couldn't be rusty. But he was hiding out in his room and (pouting about Sam leaving him) licking his own wounds instead of realizing what was wrong.

 _He was too clueless to help you out with your dad,_ Lucy noted, forking a piece of lettuce into Sam's mouth. It was slimy with an oil-based dressing that hadn't been shaken before being squeezed out of the bottle. _And now he's too clueless to help you out with me. I'm detecting a pattern here._

Sam was pretty tired of Lucy reading his thoughts, too.

Apparently done with the salad, Lucy stopped shoving him into his tongue. He didn't do anything, just let himself unfold, so he wound up spreading out over all his other sensory organs. He watched as she dug his wallet out, tucked a few bills under the plate that held the remains of the salad, and slid out of the booth. He saw that they were in a shabby diner where time had apparently stopped in the fifties, just like every other diner in every other town like this one. He hadn't seen it when they'd come in, not having been hooked into his eyes, but he hadn't missed much.

 _Let's go pack!_ Lucy announced cheerfully as she pushed the diner's door open and stepped out into the cold November dampness of Washington. Sam didn't point out that she'd never really unpacked, taking out only what she absolutely had to and putting it back as soon as she was done with it.

That was a habit he shared with her. Or maybe she didn't usually live out of a backpack, but she'd picked that tendency out of his brain so she could use it to make him unconsciously sympathetic to her - which seemed like something she'd do. Dean spread out over every room he crashed in, but Sam only did that in a home, and he hadn't had a home since (he was six months old) (Bobby had chased them off and they'd never gone back) (he'd left college) he'd started resenting Dean.

 _What do you want to do when we get back to Stanford, Sam?_ Lucy asked him as they walked along the soft shoulder of the road, stepping over the puddles that'd accumulated where the gravel and mud dipped. _Because_ I _think I'd like to see if we can hook back up with your girlfriend._

Sam's reaction was more raw emotion than thought or word, so it was barely coherent, even to him.

_-don'tyouFUCKINGtouchheryoufilthyBITCHillripyouintoPIECES-_

She drew back from him, if only for a second. He felt her shock, but it wasn't as satisfying as it should've been, since it was falling on a numb soul with few un-charred emotional nerve endings left.

 _Wow, Sam,_ Lucy said, her smoke settling back in to cocoon him again. She sounded genuinely impressed. _I didn't think you had anything like that left in you. Say...when's the last time you had that kind of reaction to me threatening_ Dean _?_

Sam didn't answer. He was tired.

* * *

Lucy had gotten sick of his silence by the time they got back to the motel. Considering that she could pretty much read his thoughts, Sam couldn't understand why she'd think that he was only doing it to piss her off instead of being nearly incapable of saying anything right now. If she knew it, though, she was willfully ignoring it. She was needling him, zealously trying to get a rise out of him, firing questions at him and prodding his soul with sharpened smoke tentacles. In fact, she was so into it that Sam saw Dean before she did, when they stepped into the room.

He was sitting on the edge of the bed, and he looked startlingly like how Sam felt. His face was blank, his shoulders were hunched, and his elbows were resting on his thighs with his hands clasped limply between his legs. He tensed up pretty bad when Lucy unlocked and opened the door, but other than that, he didn't move.

And maybe Sam wasn't the best person to be reading his older brother's emotions right now, with the shape he was in, but he could swear that he saw a fragile sort of hope behind the dulled green in Dean's eyes. What the hell did he think he was doing?

Sam could tell when Lucy noticed Dean, because she went totally silent and stopped poking him. And then she started laughing, high-pitched and delighted. She sounded like a seven-year-old girl who'd just unwrapped a bridle and saddle on Christmas morning and knew exactly what they meant. That comparison disturbed Sam for more than one reason, and he wished he hadn't thought of it.

 _Oh, oh - ohhh, Sammy, this is so perfect,_ Lucy gushed. She was using the time that she was talking to Sam to hold his body rigid and shocked, staring at Dean with his mouth slightly open. _Did he_ break into your room _and wait for you to come back as some last grand gesture to make you love him again?_ Her smoke was doing the demonic equivalent of clapping her hands and jumping up and down. _You'll be eating dinner in the Stanford cafeteria, sweetie._

Sam wilted. He'd resigned himself to what was going to happen - and who he was probably going to end up blaming. But no way had he thought Dean would do something like this. He was aware that Dean had no way of knowing what kind of ammunition he was giving Lucy, how much deeper she could sink Sam into his own personal Hell with this. But _still._

(Freaking _moron._ Always so goddamned _selfish_.)

Dean lifted his chin slightly, and Lucy, standing just inside the room, immediately backed up towards the still-open door, angrily spitting, "What the hell're - "

She abruptly stopped, both moving and talking. Sam was confused - and pleasantly surprised that he still had the strength to feel that, but that was irrelevant right now. He hadn't felt or seen anything. Outside of his body, at least. Inside, Lucy's smoke had just...frozen. For about a fraction of a second, but it'd definitely happened, and Sam had noticed. No curling tendrils, no drifting, no roiling. It wasn't natural. Which was ironic, considering what Lucy was.

Dean arched an eyebrow, and Sam's spirit shivered with something that was gone far too fast for him to recognize. He looked like he was about to say something, but Lucy looked down at the carpet and then, apparently finding nothing, up at the ceiling before he could. It was a violent, jerky motion, and it probably would've hurt if Sam had been connected to the nerves in his neck.

_He didn't._

Before Sam could ask Lucy what she meant by that, she screamed. And kept on screaming. Since she didn't need air, she could probably keep it up as long as she liked. Because of that shrill, furious sound, reaching every corner of his body, rattling his soul, and boring into what little sanity he had left, it took Sam a while to make out what had set her off. It felt much longer than it probably was, since Dean hadn't moved a muscle when Lucy looked back down at him.

Sam saw it before that happened, though. It was almost invisible; it looked like it'd been done in white chalk, and even though the ceiling was dirty, it was white, too. It was some kind of symbol, a five-pointed star inside a circle. There was other stuff, too, but Sam mainly focused on that circle. _A circle._ He remembered being on his knees, cold and wet, and trying desperately to rake one into the pine litter around him on the off chance it'd trap the thing inside him.

Dean had caught Lucy. Which meant he was trying to save him. Which meant he'd figured it out.

Now Lucy looked at Dean again. Her scream had dropped into a roar, and either she was too attached to Sam's body right now or her emotions were strong enough to spill over into it, because his chest was heaving. He could feel his face getting red, too, and his fists clenching, and he'd be surprised if there weren't a few veins and tendons standing out in his neck.

"Whatsamatter, Sammy?" Dean asked nonchalantly, clearing his throat and standing up. Sam noticed that there was a thick, leather-bound book dangling from his left hand. Lucy noticed, too. Her smoke shivered and fizzed with anger and what Sam hoped was at least a little bit of fear, the jagged edges raking over the surface of his soul. "How come you aren't booking it right now? I mean, I'm in your room, 'cause I picked the lock. I was sitting on your bed. Had a change of heart?"

"Nnn-no," Lucy ground out. She seemed to be having as much trouble with Sam's tongue as he had when he'd warned Dean about the naiad. "I'm gonna - tired of running, Dean. Just sick of all this. Gonna end it."

Dean had been steadily moving closer, in a lazy, meandering way that was driving Sam stark raving nuts because _couldn't he hurry the hell up and yank this freaking demon out of him and give him his body and his life back?!_ But now he stopped, about five feet away from the edge of the circle on the ceiling. He put his free hand in the pocket of his jeans and fixed Lucy with a steady green gaze. And Sam, too, since he was looking out through his eyes. "I'll let you do it, then. Come get me."

Silence. Lucy was still sucking wind, the breaths deep and ragged. Sam knew what she was thinking, even though she'd taken a page out of his book and hadn't bothered translating it into real words, and it made him cringe away from her even more than usual, balling himself up in an effort to shut it out. The things she wanted to do to him right now, and even more so to Dean...she must have seen or done them in Hell, because there was no way a living human body would still be capable of feeling pain after all that.

Eventually, Dean broke the silence and, mercifully, Lucy's train of thought. He swung the book up, cracking it open and flipping through the thin pages. With hate and barely-contained rage to rival what Sam was getting off of Lucy, he growled, "Get the _fuck_ outta my brother, you son of a bitch."

If souls could cry, Sam would've been down in a puddle in his feet, bawling like a baby. Even if he'd had full control of his body, he would've been doing some version of that. Who cared if Dean teased him for it later? Dean knew he wouldn't act like this on his own. He loved him. He was going to save him.

_NOT_

_SO_

_FAST_

The iron-heavy words blindsided Sam as all of Lucy's frantic thoughts and emotions suddenly crystallized into one effort. He understood it, and did his best to keep his soul from sinking. It did anyway, but...it was useless. It was a failed coup-de-grace. Dean wouldn't fall for it.

Then again. Sam had been possessed for (months) (years) (ever) well over a week now, after all, and Dean hadn't made a move until today.

"Don't exorcise me," Lucy blurted with Sam's mouth. She raised both his hands, palms out, in the universal gesture for "stop." She widened his eyes a little, too, like she wanted to make him - them - look as innocent as possible.

"Sure. Yeah," Dean replied, still flipping. His eyes were fixed on that book. Sam realized that he was looking for an exorcism ritual, and wondered why that hadn't occurred to him before now.

"How long do you think Sam has been possessed?" Lucy asked Dean.

"I _know_ you've been in him since we wrapped up our last hunt," Dean answered, finally stopping on a specific page. "Since he started acting weird. That's not my brother - it was a complete turnaround."

"Wrong." Lucy almost sang it out, and Sam could feel her excitement over the fact that Dean was actually responding to her. "Only a few days. Most of this has been all him - _all_ of it's been all him, really. I've barely been controlling him at all. Just giving him a nudge or two in the right direction when he starts getting weak again. Wanna know what I've mostly been doing?"

"Shut up." Concentration was etched into Dean's face as he stared down at the page. Sam, straining for him to start reading, wondered if he was trying to figure out how to pronounce the Latin. A lot of it would probably be unfamiliar to him. That was okay.

(Stupid. No wonder he never finished high school.)

 _"Cleaning up your mess,"_ Lucy said. "That's what I've been doing. When I crawled into him, I thought I'd be bringing down a couple of hunters, but then I saw what you'd done to him. What'd been going on between you two. Your _brother_ is so freaking _broken_ \- _I_ may be a demon, but _you're_ evil."

Sam saw Dean flinch at that. Trapped inside his own body, he silently screamed at him for showing this weakness as Lucy pounced on it, practically salivating. She knew exactly how to hurt him now, how to beat him down even more definitively than she had been all along.

"Sam thinks so, too," Lucy said, her relish at Dean's pain coming through clearly in Sam's voice. She hadn't even tried to hide it. "You ruined him, messed him up so bad he hates himself if he's with anybody but you. That's why he broke up with his girlfriend, even though he loved her - he wanted to marry her. He was going to propose, did you know that?"

Dean had closed his eyes He wasn't even looking at the exorcism anymore. Sam wanted to tell him that he'd thought about it, but hadn't decided on anything. He'd looked at rings, just for fun, but he hadn't put any money down. Because he hadn't even known if Jess would say yes or not and he firmly believed nobody should propose marriage unless they already knew the answer for sure.

Sam also wanted to throw a punch hard enough to dislocate Dean's jaw and tell him to man up and read the rite. He was fighting a demon. He couldn't be so (weak) (selfish) sensitive.

"He knew exactly how wrong and unhealthy your relationship was, while he was at college," Lucy continued. "What you'd done to him, how most of it was never going to heal. I guess he compulsively pushed all that down once he was back under your control...but he couldn't keep it there forever. It started bubbling back up to the surface near the end of that ghost hunt. And I laid it bare."

Dean opened his eyes again and looked up. They were unnaturally bright, like there was more moisture than usual in them. Sam tried to pull away from his own eyes, not wanting to see his older brother reduced to tears by the demon that was pulling his strings, but he couldn't. Lucy must be holding him in place.

"If you just erase the devil's trap and let me go," Lucy began, softening Sam's voice considerably. Sam couldn't help but catalog the fact that the circle holding her in place was called a devil's trap. "I'll keep fixing Sam. Then I'll leave, and that'll be my good deed for...well, ever. I _am_ a demon." She seemed to like rubbing that in Dean's face. "This is what Sam wants. I guarantee it."

Dean shifted his weight from one foot to the other and took a deep breath. "And he's not telling me this himself 'cause...?"

"He's afraid of you," Lucy replied, like that should've been obvious.

Sam hung limp, suspended from the eyes and ears he couldn't pull away from. Dean couldn't fall for this. It was a ridiculously obvious lie, and even though some of the things Lucy had said had obviously hurt him, he had to see through it. He'd caught a demon. He couldn't - wouldn't - just let it run off, no matter what it told him.

Sam tried to force that belief into himself, knowing that Lucy was aware of every word of it and not caring. But at that point, he felt like Dean had abandoned him and let him down too many times for him to muster any more faith.

"Fine. Let's say I believe that." Dean's voice was tight and bitter, and something in it made Sam think of a man who'd been fatally wounded and knew it, but was still grimly dragging himself towards his goal. "If Sam's really that scared of me, if what we had was so bad...then I care about him enough to let him go."

 _No, no, no, no, no,_ Sam moaned, soul trembling in unwilling anticipation of all the future torture that Dean had just sent his way with his (total stupidity) misguided nobility. Lucy didn't even take a moment to mock his horror and pain. She was too busy trying to control her smoke, which was currently a hurricane of excitement.

There was a soft _flick_ ing sound, one that might've been inside or outside of Sam's body. He couldn't tell. His vision suddenly got much, much better, though. Everything was brighter and crisper, even the drab colors of the motel room dazzlingly rich - in a disturbing way, though, like the bleached bone of the white walls and the fresh, bloody liver of the maroon carpet. Dean...was almost glowing. Not really. It was hard to tell. Green-white, hints of amber, edged with sickly-looking darkness. An aura around him. Sam had no idea what that was. He was distracted, but still caught it when Dean, staring at him, looked very briefly shocked and then disgusted.

It took Sam way too long to figure out what had happened: his eyes had turned black. He remembered Lucas Moon's eyes doing that, taking on a solid shade, after Dean had fired a salt round into his chest. Lucy must automatically switch over into demon-vision when she was worked up enough, no matter the emotion. Kind of an infernal erection.

"I'll go ahead and buy him a bus ticket, if he wants," Dean continued. Had been continuing for a while; he'd been dragging words out of himself in that same hopeless tone of voice the whole time Sam had been obsessing over his eyes. "So I don't have to drive him, and he doesn't have to be trapped in a small space with me ever again."

He was staring hard at Sam's eyes while he talked. Lucy made Sam blink, he heard the _flick_ ing sound again, and his vision was back to normal when she opened his eyes. Did she not want a reminder of exactly what she was out where Dean could see it while he was gearing up to let her run off with Sam?

"You know what else I believe, though?" Dean asked. He squeezed the book in his hands. Paper crinkled and his knuckles went yellow-white, even the freckles on them disappearing. "That Sam can tell me all this _himself._ " Lucy's hurricane stalled a little. Sam could feel her confusion and wariness. "He's smart, and he's freaking strong. He can scrape all of me outta him on his own and be normal. Might take ten, twenty years..." Sam actually saw Dean's determination lock in. And wasn't sure of anything anymore. "But he sure as hell doesn't need a damn demon to heal him."

Dean finally looked away from Sam and Lucy - so he could stare down at his book and start reading in Latin. At almost exactly the same moment, Lucy started screaming again. Now, there was some pain mixed in with the anger.

 _You couldn't have fallen for that._ It was more of a private thought than a statement directed specifically at Lucy - partly because, embarrassingly enough, it applied to him, too - but Sam assumed that she'd be able to hear it anyway. Just like she'd have to have heard it when he'd been telling himself that Dean couldn't be falling for her act.

She'd heard it. He knew for sure half a second later. If she hadn't, she wouldn't be squeezing him, spikes of smoke digging into his soul like serrated fangs.

Lucy was on her way out. She knew it, Sam knew it. And he'd been sharing his body with her against his will for long enough to also know that she was going to hurt him as badly as she could before she was gone.

He could take it. He owed Dean that much, after all the doubt and resentment he'd felt for him over the last few days.

_"Infernalis adversarii, omnis legio, omnis congregatio et secta diabolica. Ergo draco..."_

Speaking of Dean, he was still plugging away, nose almost literally buried in the book and eyes squinted to make out what must have been some extremely small text. Sam had the rite he was using memorized, or at least a version of it, so he knew he was still at the beginning. He badly wanted him to hurry up, but Dean was actually trucking along for not making any mistakes. If he went any faster, he could screw the whole thing up and having to start all over. Sam would just have to be patient. Stick out Lucy's last-minute soul-shredding.

_"...et omnis legio diabolica, adjuramuste."_

Sam's spine bent as Dean finished the line he was on. His hands flew to his stomach, fisting the fabric of his shirt - reacting to Lucy's pain, which he thankfully couldn't feel, not his own. The demon-vision suddenly came back as his mouth opened and his throat convulsed. He tasted sulfur, and saw a little black smoke falling out of him and dissolving in the air. It looked somehow diseased through black eyes, though Sam couldn't have explained why.

Still chewing on him inside his body, Lucy growled out loud and forced said body straight. She threw a hand, palm out, towards Dean once she was upright again. Sam remembered her throwing him around like a rag doll without ever touching him in Nevada and Colorado. He winced and braced himself to watch (the precious, precious exorcism ritual being interrupted) his brother being hurled into the opposite wall hard enough to break bones...but Dean's clothes didn't even flutter. The devil's trap circle must kill most of a demon's powers, along with trapping them.

 _"...eisque aeternae Perditionis venenum propinae."_ Dean, blazing his way through the last line of the first stanza - or whatever different sections in an exorcism were called - didn't even notice. So Lucy tried something else to trip him up.

"Okay, go on, exorcise me," she shouted, throwing Sam's arms wide. "Took you long enough to get around to it, though. _Great_ hunting there. A-plus. I'm sure - " She flinched heavily inside and out, reacting to something Dean had read. Because he was still reading, voice steady. If tortured by all the unfamiliar sounds. " - your old man would be so proud. Especially because you're too damn late." She retched again before she could continue, fully doubling over. More smoke came out this time, and her grip on Sam's squirming soul weakened by a degree. Once it'd passed, she straightened up again and, apparently abandoning the whole story she'd tried to sell Dean earlier, snarled, "I've been in him for almost two weeks. I've had full access to him - you've been letting me play with him this whole time, and I know how to _break_ humans. What makes you think you're really getting your brother back? Are you too optimistic to know he's _ruined_?"

 _"Humiliare sub potenti manu de,"_ Dean ground out. His eyes were hard, still determined. Sam felt like what Lucy had just said had been intended for him as much as it had been for Dean.

Her smoke weakened and thinned in the area of Sam's legs, and his body collapsed onto its knees. She didn't fall forward onto his hands, though. Not yet. Remaining upright, she glared at Dean, and Sam noticed that that aura of his was looking more shadowy around the edges now than it had before. He also noticed that his own hair and clothes had started to move in a gentle wind that seemed to be confined to the inside of the circle.

"I've made him terrified of you," she yelled. Inanely, Sam hoped nobody could hear this, like the motel's owner or the very few people in the other rooms. The last thing Dean needed was a civilian walking into an exorcism. "I've made him _hate_ you. The seeds were already there, with all those times he was hurting and alone and you couldn't tell or didn't care, and I nurtured them. You won't be able to touch him, when I'm gone, he won't be able to look at you." More retching. There was some outside screaming this time, too. Lucy focused on Sam's soul, his insides, making iron-strong hooks out of what was left of her smoke and digging in. "You're not winning here. _I_ am."

She was wrong. He wasn't broken, he wasn't ruined. He could look at Dean. He'd be just fine as soon as he was alone in his body again.

Lucy heard him again, as the wind picked up. She'd been reduced by the exorcism so far, a lot of unnecessary pieces stripped away and lost in the air, but there was still more than enough smoke left for her to fully wrap his soul in it. Cocoon him within herself. The parts that'd come out of Sam's mouth must've been insulation or padding of some kind, because she felt worse against him than she ever had before. It paralyzed him, and made him realize that he wasn't nearly as numb to the concentrated essence of a demon as he'd thought he was, after all this time.

 _You can be just as upbeat as you like, you little whore,_ Lucy hissed to him as Dean kept on working to get her out. When she said "little," she made sure he knew that she was thinking of how he'd put out for his brother in elementary school, way before any of his growth spurts. _But you're not going to be able to shake off my work. You'll remember how he never knew about your father. You'll remember how you felt about him while you were at college. You'll remember how long it took him to save you from me - and how badly I hurt you that whole time. How badly he_ let _me hurt you._

 _"Deus Israhel ipse truderit virtutem...et fortitudinem..."_ Sam could only just hear Dean's voice over Lucy and the wind in the circle, which'd started to whistle. He clung to it, and to the knowledge that he was almost at the very end, like a life preserver after he'd been adrift for weeks.

 _He is the reason you'll never be normal,_ Lucy told him. Pounded it into his mind with an emotional sledgehammer, really. He couldn't keep the idea from penetrating. _He's the reason you'll never be happy. He's the ball and chain tying you to hunting, to dying young, to being a freak. To running into more things like me. He knows all that, but he's way too selfish to kick you out of his life for your own good._

 _"...plebi Suae."_ Lucy wasn't really in control at all anymore. Sam's body was on all fours now, jacket whipping in the wind, and locked elbows were the only thing keeping him from falling flat on his face. His body heaved; smoke gushed out. Instead of evaporating like the stuff before, this stayed, swirling around his hands. His knuckles poked out of the inky sea of it like pale islands.

 _It'll come back to you when you two come to an end,_ said Lucy, more out than in at that point. She still had a hold of his soul, though, and had dragged it with her, so he was pressed up against the inside of his own face. _When he ends up killing you to keep you from leaving; when he dies and you can't help but be relieved. Something like that is going to happen, soon, and it'll be because of me. I_ won! _You faggots got everything you deserved for what you did to me!_

 _"Benedictus Deus Gloria patri!"_ Dean yelled that line, the last line, and, in doing so, ripped Lucy the rest of the way out of Sam. Freed his soul. Freed him.

She had time to say something before she was ejected, though. And to flip a switch in his brain - or, more accurately, the latch of a cage she'd constructed herself.

_Enjoy my parting gift, Sammy._

Sam was back in place. He'd automatically snapped out to fill the boundaries of his body and take control as soon as he was the only mind in it, settling back into the shape he'd been born in. Without Lucy waiting to snatch the illusion of control right out from under him, for the first time in verging on two weeks. It should've felt good. It should've felt transcendent. It should've seriously rivaled the best orgasm Dean had ever given him.

But Lucy's last act in her possession of him had been to release the construct of his father that he'd inadvertently built to torment himself.

The wind had abruptly died, and the black smoke of the demon that Dean had just willfully dragged out of him had gone...somewhere. Hopefully back to the very lowest level of Hell, which was supported by the ashy black patch on the carpet, where she must have burned her way through the floor. Only the smallest possible part of Sam noticed that, though. The rest of him was senseless, on his knees and elbows, forehead ground into the carpet hard enough to give him rugburn, hands buried in his hair, fingers clutching his skull. Pathetic whimpers might've been leaking out of him, too, but he wasn't really aware enough to tell for sure.

Lucy must've worked on it. He wasn't sure when she'd done that, since she'd spent basically all her time playing with him like an angler trying to exhaust a fish, but she had to have, because it was different. It wasn't a voice anymore, for starters. Or an image of his father, or even memories of what he'd said to him, years ago. It was mostly feelings now. Overpowering, inescapable, reason-penetrating feelings.

Sam was awash in an excruciatingly-complete knowledge of John's feelings towards him and Dean, and what they'd done. He knew how Jess felt, the nausea and self-loathing as she remembered how many times she'd allowed something like him inside her body. He knew how Bobby would feel, if he'd found out. Everybody he knew, everybody he'd met, everybody he'd looked up to, respected, felt something for - he knew. He'd never felt filthier, or more hated.

He wanted to die. He wished he'd died on a hunt years ago. He wished his mother had been killed before he'd been born. Before he'd even been conceived.

None of it was real, of course. Lucy hadn't had access to the minds of any of these people. But it _felt_ real, and that was all that mattered right now.

Plus, it wasn't just the knowledge. There was so much _doubt,_ too. He doubted Dean's commitment to him, because of what he'd let their father do, and because he'd just let him go when he left for college, and because he'd taken so long to even notice Lucy. He doubted his ability to protect him. He doubted that he wouldn't hurt him himself, either accidentally or intentionally. He doubted that Dean thought of him as anything but a guaranteed lay. Sam even doubted his own self-worth. Because Lucy had somehow rigged it so that Dean was simultaneously a clueless, abusive rapist and a shining paragon of a human being that Sam didn't deserve to so much as look at, much less to love, in his mind.

He felt cold. He felt hollow. He felt shrunken and wounded.

He felt _broken_.

He felt _ruined._

Sam heard Dean drop the book he'd been reading out of. It sounded like something that'd happened in the next room, or even a few rooms over. He ran into the devil's trap, almost tripping over his own feet because of how unsteady he was, then fell hard onto his knees right in front of Sam. That had to've hurt - the carpet was thin, and there wasn't anything underneath it but solid concrete.

Sam didn't see any of that, but he heard it. Just barely. And he felt it when Dean grabbed his shoulders (roughly) (aggressively) in a panicky way and hauled him up so that he could see his face.

"Oh, Jesus Christ, Sammy, I'm so - "

Dean, voice thick like he was only just holding back sobs, abruptly shut up. Sam hadn't been able to help it, drowning in the poison that Lucy had drained into the very heart of him right as she left: he flinched. Badly. Pulled entirely away from Dean's hands.

They stared at each other. Sam was crying. He wasn't sure when that had started, but he was looking at Dean through swollen eyelids and a misty film of moisture, and his face felt wet. Even with all that, he could tell Dean's face was frozen into a non-expression. And he could see past that mask to the pain and utter devastation underneath.

"I..." Dean began, so softly that Sam wouldn't have known what he'd said if he hadn't read his lips. Then he started to pull away, making moves to stand up. And an entirely new emotion overwhelmed all the others he was feeling at the moment: panic.

He could not watch Dean leave again. He couldn't see him withdraw. He couldn't hurt him so badly.

He couldn't live without him.

Sam threw himself forward, pushing through the fear and the agony and the reservations and the damage, and collapsed against Dean's chest. He bawled into his T-shirt and draped his arms around his neck, squeezing, begging physically to be held. Words that he had no real control over poured out of him like Lucy's smoke had a few minutes earlier.

"Dad knows he saw us he hates us he made me promise never to do it again that's why I left and I was such an asshole to you I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm - "

"He talked to you?" Dean exclaimed. He'd put his arms around Sam had some point. It felt so right that he hadn't even noticed. "That son of a bitch, he lied to me, he told me he - " And then Dean started crying, too, for real, in a way Sam hadn't seen from him for at least fifteen years. Like Sam was right now. Loud sobs, snot everywhere. It wasn't pretty, it wasn't strong, and Dean only allowed himself a couple minutes of it, but Sam felt like it'd been earned, and he hoped that it was enough. Dean needed a release, and Sam needed to see that human weakness from his brother. But he badly needed a pillar of strength, too, when Dean was done.

So Dean held him for a while. And Sam didn't say anything else - just cried. Made up for all those times he'd wanted to weep during his possession but hadn't been able to, because he hadn't had access to his tear ducts. Purged what he could of Lucy's "parting gift," even though most of it was going to take a lot more time and effort to clean up. Indulged in the warmth and scent and feel and sounds of Dean, all of which he'd been craving more than freedom or salvation or even being able to feed himself.

Sam was fuzzy-minded and exhausted by the time he'd wound down to sniffs and hiccups, and he felt almost like he was floating in Dean's (restrictive) (possessive) comforting _protective_ embrace. Also like he was ten years younger, or maybe even twenty.

"She got in my head," Sam said dully, once he felt like he could talk. "I started to hate you." He'd thought that he was all out of tears, especially since a dehydration headache was moving all its throbs and pains into his sinuses, but his eyes started to well up again. This time out of guilt. "I'm s-sorry..."

"No," Dean said firmly. With considerable effort, Sam pushed himself up and pulled back to look at him with surprise (and a little bit of fear - no no no he wasn't afraid of Dean he had no reason to be...Dean loved him).

Dean _loved_ him. He proved it as he continued.

"Christ, Sammy, of _course_ she got in your head - you were possessed," he said with a short, humorless laugh. Both his voice and his eyes were rock-steady as he spoke. Sam needed that so badly right now, and hungrily soaked it up. He didn't even say anything about the nickname that Lucy had tainted for him. "We're not gonna do that. We're not gonna blame the victim, we're not gonna talk about who screwed up when or where. The only apologies should be coming from _me_ , for taking as long as I did..." Sam opened his mouth to say something about that, but Dean gently cut him off. "...but we're not gonna do that right now, either. 'Cause you've been through hell. So've I. Probably not as bad, but it was still rough." He cleared his throat. "We both just gotta...rest, for now."

Sam had never thought of himself as somebody who was afraid to talk about his feelings. It was the opposite, usually - Dad might've given Dean his "if we don't talk about it then it doesn't exist" mentality, but Sam couldn't keep it bottled up when something bothered him or pissed him off. With a few very notable exceptions.

But he agreed with Dean here. Lucy might've taken good care of his body, but she'd gone all the way in the other direction with his mind, and an exorcism was physically exhausting for all parties involved besides. Going over all their faults didn't sound nearly as good as resting and recovering from everything that'd happened. Plus, he didn't get the feeling that Dean just didn't want to have a painful heart-to-heart.

So Sam rested his head against Dean's chest again and closed his eyes with a heavy sigh. It was an awkward position because of how much taller he was than Dean, but it felt good, so he made it work.

They were quiet again for a while. Dean held Sam like both their lives depended on him never letting go. Sam listened to his breathing, and the beating of his heart - and the growling of his stomach, which neither of them mentioned. Dean really hadn't been eating well lately, Sam realized with a start. Lucy had commented on his lack of appetite a couple of times, but Sam had never really paid attention. Laying against Dean, able to feel at least a couple of ribs, Sam wondered if he'd lost weight. And if, had Lucy succeeded in separating them, it might not just have ended up killing both of them.

Sam put a hand on Dean shoulder and squeezed, moving closer to him. Dean responded by holding him just a little more tightly.

"I love you," he said quietly.

Sam's stomach tightened. He obviously didn't know that, for Sam, the best possible outcome had been the two of them never seeing each other again. Which obviously would've destroyed Dean.

Then again, up 'til very recently, Dean's best possible outcome had seemed to be everything sorting itself out on its own without any effort on his part. Maybe they cancelled each other out.

"Prove it," Sam whispered, hoping Dean knew what that meant. Hoping he remembered.

He needed this. He needed to be even closer to Dean than he was right now, as close as they could possibly get. He needed that affirmation - that proof that all the rapes and rough, unloving sex that Lucy had forced him to live through had been one hundred percent fake.

Dean pulled away, putting some space between the two of them so that they had to look at each other. Sam waited, irrationally afraid. That he wouldn't get it, that he wasn't feeling anything but pity towards somebody weak enough to get possessed, that he didn't wanna be with him after he'd had a demon in his body for so long.

"No," Dean said eventually, shaking his head slightly. Maybe it hadn't been all that irrational after all.

"W-why?" Sam stuttered out. He felt like he might cry again - what was he, four? No wonder Dean didn't want to have sex with him.

"Hey, hey," Dean soothed immediately, apparently having been able to see how Sam had taken that. He lifted a hand in order to cup the side of his head, burying his fingers in the waves of his hair. Sam wasn't sure if he liked that or not, since it weakened the embrace by half. "You just barely got your body back. And I can't know exactly what that thing did to you, but you said it got inside your head...is having sex with me really the first thing you wanna do?"

Sam was silent for a few seconds. He wasn't really thinking about Dean's question - he was remembering one of the many, many things Lucy had told him. That their relationship was mostly just sex to Dean, and that he was using Sam. If that was true, would he really have shut him down when he tried to initiate the first intimate contact they'd had in years?

"I..." Sam leaned into the hand that Dean had on his head, deciding that he liked it after all. "When's the last time you ate something?"

"Y'mean, like, for real?" Dean asked. "A while."

"It just fed me a salad," Sam replied, "but we can get something for you." He pulled away from the hand and rested his chin on Dean's shoulder, still craving closeness even though he'd decided not to push for sex right now. He mustered something like a smile. "Bacon cheeseburger? Chili fries and a milkshake?"

Dean didn't laugh, even though Sam had sort of wanted him to. "I'd rather order something. I don't wanna go out right now...and I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say that you really don't, either."

As soon as he thought about it, Sam had to admit that he really wasn't up to going outside at the moment. After being trapped inside his own body, the small hotel room felt huge, giving him more than enough room to stretch. At the same time, it was a protective cocoon, shielding him - or them, more like, from anything that might try to take advantage of their weakened states. The devil's trap on the ceiling was a comforting reminder of Sam's freedom. The bed brought back that longing that went deeper than a simple physical desire. The backpack, full of all his stuff and ready to go...reminded him how close they'd cut it.

Sam might've preferred to move to Dean's room. Even though they were basically identical, there were a lot fewer bad memories there - even though the bed was probably still damp and definitely still smelled like the river. He didn't really want to go outside for even the few seconds that it would've taken to switch rooms, though. So they stayed in Sam's room and Dean ordered pizza. From the diner Lucy/Sam had eaten lunch at, which was pretty much the only game in town.

They didn't have to maintain constant contact by the time the pizza was delivered, but Sam still had a borderline-obsessive need to be close to Dean. And his older brother didn't seem to be able to let him out of his sight, since he pulled him up and held his hand, keeping him at his side, as he opened the door and paid. Sam was fine with that. The deliveryboy was more interested in the tip Dean gave him than the fact that he'd just given a pizza to two guys holding hands, which was a small mercy.

Sam was fragile at the moment, even though he logically knew that there wasn't anything fundamentally wrong with the way he and Dean loved each other. He wasn't sure he could handle scrutiny or judgement from an outsider. Even one who didn't know that they were brothers.

They sat on the bed first, but then they moved to the floor, since Dean said it smelled like sulfur. Actually, according to him, pretty much everything that Sam had touched while he was possessed smelled like sulfur. His backpack, his clothes, his hair. Sam himself.

"We're takin' a shower as soon as I'm done with this," Dean announced, flipping open the pizza box he'd set in his lap.

Sam didn't smell anything - but maybe that was because of how long he'd spent hot-bunking with a demon. He definitely wouldn't object to a shower, though. Half because vomiting up Lucy had left him feeling dirty and sweaty, and half because his heart had fluttered excitedly at Dean's "we."

Because Sam wanted a couple of slices after a while, suddenly starving despite the salad he'd had a couple hours earlier, Dean set the box between them. They sat with their backs against the foot of the bed, eating and drinking tap water out of Dixie cups - because they were both dry and achy, after all the very necessary crying they'd done. And they talked. A little about new stuff, but mostly about things that they both knew they should've gotten out in the open years ago.

It felt good. It hurt. They needed to do it. It was like cutting open a long-ignored scar because it'd really been hurting lately and finding an infection that'd been festering since the original wound had been received...and then cleaning it out so everything could heal.

"So when - when did Dad talk to you?" Sam asked quietly. He was sitting with his long legs bent, elbows resting on top of his knees so that his hands and forearms dangled between them.

"Little while after you left," Dean replied, clearing his throat. He took another bite of the pizza slice that he was holding. Sam, face turned towards him, watched his Adam's apple bob as he swallowed it. "I was, uh...kind of a mess." Sam felt a pang of guilt. And then another one of vindictiveness - he'd been kind of a mess then, too. "He wanted me to get my ducks in a row, so he pretty much told me I needed to get laid so I could get over you. He let me figure out he knew from that."

Sam looked away, licking slightly-chapped lips and shaking his head. "He talked to me _right_ after he saw us," he said.

"Wait a minute, how'd that happen?" Dean asked, frowning. He shifted so his whole body was more or less aimed toward Sam. "I mean - where was I?"

"In the shower," Sam answered. It had all the clarity of broken glass laying in the sunlight for him, since Lucy had forced him to go through it again earlier that day. "We did all the stuff we usually did after sex. Y'know, cuddling, saying sappy stuff to each other." That got a smile out of Dean, and Sam was glad. "Then you went to go get cleaned up. Dad came in and made me put pants on, then he dragged me outside and reamed me out."

"And when was that?"

"January. I was practically naked - I almost got frostbite."

Dean swore and punched the ground, but Sam doubted it'd been hard enough to hurt himself, even with the cement under the carpet. They probably had around the same amount of energy right now: barely any.

"He told me he hadn't talked to you," he said.

"Well, he promised _me_ he wouldn't talk to _you_ , so he lied to both of us," Sam replied.

"Why'd you make him promise that?" Dean asked, shaking his head. "Actually - why didn't you just tell me yourself? Could've avoided a whole lotta bullshit."

"Dude - Dad was your _idol_ back then," Sam responded. "You defended him every time I was pissed at him, and you were always just about killing yourself trying to make him proud of you. I thought that...it'd hurt you too badly...to know how he felt about the two of us after that." Sam chewed on his lower lip. "I didn't know you knew, so I thought you still worshiped him even now. Didn't realize things had gone bad between you two." The look on Dean's face suggested that it wasn't as simple as all that, and Sam remembered that he was the one who had wanted to find Dad in the first place. Dean's Electra complex wasn't really the point of this conversation, though. "I guess I was trying to protect _you_ , for once. But I should've just told you. It wound up tearing me up."

"Yeah, I could tell," Dean said with a sigh. Sam blinked at him.

"You - you noticed - "

"Oh, my _god_ ," Dean interrupted. "Hell, _yes,_ I noticed you were acting weird. Most of the time, you wouldn't touch me with a ten-foot pole. Then, every once in a while, you'd practically tackle me to the bed, like you were gonna die if you didn't get it right then. And then you'd take off and shower soon as we both finished." Dean flopped back against the bed, regarding Sam. "You'd been cuddly as hell for the last twenty years, so that was kind of a big change."

Sam blushed, unable to help it. "If you could tell that something was up with me, why didn't you ask me about it?"

"I _did._ I must've asked you if something was wrong a hundred times."

"No, I mean - " Sam ground his teeth, starting to get frustrated. "Why didn't you _push_? I needed you to push." A little more quietly, he added, "I was in a bad place then."

"So why didn't you tell me?" Dean asked.

Sam looked at him, then sighed heavily, closing his eyes and lowering his head into his hands. What Lucy had left him with made him want to scream at Dean and blame him for everything. That would've been easy, too. He powered through the first reaction and did something harder, though.

"'Cause I was stupid back then," Sam mumbled. "I've been stupid for a long damn time now." He couldn't quite resist adding, "But _you_ were pretty freaking stupid, too."

"Yeah," Dean agreed, wearily. "I was. Am, still."

They were quiet again for a few seconds, mostly because Sam wasn't entirely sure what to say in response to that. It turned out that he didn't actually have to think of anything, since Dean abruptly said, "I should've gone with you to Stanford."

"I don't think I would've let you, at that point," Sam said, shaking his head.

"Well, then, I should've come out later," Dean replied, knocking back his latest cup of water like it was a shot. "After you'd, y'know, had time to cool down and settle in and everything. We could've talked, and then maybe I could've stayed with you. Probably not in your dorm, but I could've got a place in town. A job." He crushed the little wax-paper cup and lobbed it towards the room's small trash can. It bounced off the lip; Dean's many talents didn't include basketball. "I should've at least visited."

Sam was stuck on Dean saying he would have lived with him, out in California. Or at least near him, since all incoming freshmen had to stay in the dorms for a year.

"You would've...stopped hunting?" he asked softly.

"Well, sure, if that's really what you'd wanted." Dean shrugged nonchalantly, but then, suddenly, his whole mood changed. He got serious. Sam could sense it without even looking at him, reminding him just how well he knew his brother. "I'd still do that, if you decide that you wanna go back to being normal after we find Dad. We'll just...walk away from it all."

"What would we even do?" Sam asked, voice still soft as he shook his head.

"You'd go to law school," Dean said matter-of-factly, "and I'd...I don't know, I'd get a job at a garage or something. Be a nice change of pace, fighting crappy foreign engines instead of ghosts and monsters."

It was with a spurt of guilt that Sam remembered that hunting really wasn't the only thing Dean was good at.

"I'm gonna have to think about that," he said with a sigh, tipping his head back against the bed and closing his eyes.

If Dean had made that offer a month or so ago, Sam would've jumped at the chance. Maybe not the one to move in together, but definitely the one to return to an ordinary life. As things stood now, though, he wasn't fully sure what he wanted.

He wasn't a teenager anymore, and he hadn't been forced into the job by his dad this time. Not literally, anyway. He understood the reasoning and the responsibility much better now, too. Not only was he directly interacting with the people he was working to save and protect, he'd been a victim of the supernatural world himself. Was still a victim, if he was honest, and probably always would be, because he couldn't see the scars that Lucy had left him with healing in just one lifetime.

One of the reasons he'd wanted out so badly when he was younger was the constant stress and friction that'd come from working so closely with their father. But he was gone now, and hunting with only Dean hardly frayed Sam's nerves the same way.

Where would he be able to do more good and save more lives - as a lawyer or as a hunter? Where would the two of them be happiest - in an apartment in Palo Alto or on the road?

It was no longer a question of which lifestyle would let him stay with Dean, because Dean had just all but promised he'd follow Sam anywhere. That somehow made the decision much harder.

Sam looked at Dean, who wasn't looking at him. He was picking chunks of sausage off the two slices of pizza that were left in the box, being quiet, letting Sam think. Sam hoped that that didn't mean he expected an answer right away. This wasn't a five-minute problem.

Eventually, Dean cleared his throat and flipped the lid of the pizza box down. Sam was grateful when he changed the subject. "You done?"

"Yeah." He didn't feel quite so empty and drained anymore.

"Guess we can go shower now, then." Dean didn't get up, though, so neither did Sam. He drummed his fingers slowly on the cardboard lid of the pizza box, then stated, "You called your demon a 'she'."

"Yeah, turns out they're gendered," Sam replied, moving his hands up onto his knees and squeezing. He wanted to talk about Lucy right now even less than he wanted to talk about his feelings towards their father.

"Well, we kinda already knew that," Dean pointed out. "I mean, back in Nevada - that colonel ghost was pretty adamant about the demon there being a girl."

"Yeah." Sam coughed, reaching for his Dixie cup. Unfortunately, it only had about a finger of tap water left in it. "It was the same one."

Dean stared at him. "What?"

"It was the same one," Sam repeated. "It was Lucy - she let me call her that, no idea what her real name was. She was mad at us for exorcising her the first time, and she wanted revenge." He nursed the water, but once it was gone, he had to start talking again. "That's why she made you think I hated you again, and that's why she...did all the stuff she did to me."

Sam wasn't looking directly at Dean anymore, but he could see him out of the corner of his eye, and the expression on his face let him know that they were going to end up talking about that "stuff" sooner or later. Not right now, though. Sam was faintly surprised; usually, he was the one who made firm plans for the two of them to discuss problems, and Dean was the one who shied away and dreaded it.

"Aw, _hell_ ," Dean said. "Okay. We're gonna have to do something else - wonder if there's a way to permanently seal demons outta yourself..."

Sam blinked, feeling slow. "What?"

"She made it outta Hell and came after us once," Dean stated, making eye contact with him. "I just exorcised her again - right before she was gonna separate us for good. She's probably even more pissed now than she was the first time."

Sam silently mulled that over. The more he thought about it, and the more likely Lucy tracking them down a second time seemed, the lighter and more off-balance he felt. Despite the three slices of pizza he'd just eaten. A dark ring slowly wrapped itself around his vision, and he started being able to hear his own heartbeat. It was as rapid as machine-gun fire, and the louder it got, the more it muffled all the sounds coming in from the outside world.

This feeling had been pretty common during his first year at college, so he recognized it: he was having a panic attack.

He was aware of Dean moving closer to him and talking to him, though he couldn't make out what he was saying. Dean put his hands on Sam's shoulders, then kneed the pizza box roughly out of the way. The world snapped almost painfully back into focus when he pulled him against himself and started rubbing his back, an echo of what'd happened right after the exorcism. Sam hadn't realized that he wasn't breathing, couldn't breathe, until he could start again.

Dean must've felt his heart rate begin to drop, or at least felt him start to relax, because he pulled back after a second so that he could see Sam's face. He studied it with concern and very raw, visible fear in his own. "Sam?"

"I'm okay," Sam promised roughly.

Dean opened his moth again, like he was going to ask something else, but eventually, he just closed it without saying anything. Looking at him, Sam could see how tired he was. It wasn't the first time he'd noticed it, but it was more pronounced now. He felt small and withered inside, because this was the second time Dean had had to calm him down and comfort him today. No wonder his plan to protect Dean from their father had backfired so spectacularly. Their relationship was lopsided, because one of them was so much weaker than the other. Sam was a leech.

Dean eventually did speak, derailing Sam's self-deprecating train of thought by taking his arms from around him after a while and cupping the side of his jaw with one hand. Sam hadn't really been looking at anything, but now he focused on Dean.

"This was partially my fault," Dean started gently, which the dark things inside Sam wholeheartedly agreed with. "So I'm gonna find a way to protect you. Us. We're probably safe for a little while, but I'm gonna call Bobby again as soon as I can. If there's some kinda charm or spell we can do so neither of us can get possessed again, he'll know about it."

Sam wanted to apologize for being useless, but a second before it came out, he realized it might sound like he was fishing for sympathy. That was the last thing he wanted Dean to think of him, if he didn't already, so, instead, he asked, "'Again'? Is that how you figured out I was possessed?"

"Uh, no, actually," Dean replied, then he stood up. Sam had a moment of primal, childish fear as the distance between them increased, but it faded when Dean reached down and pulled him to his feet with a grunt of effort. "I called him to figure out what I should do, but by that point, I already knew what was going on with you. The naiad told me."

It took Sam a second to remember why Dean would've been talking to a naiad - and that that conversation had taken place this morning. He'd still been possessed then. It felt like years ago.

"Why - " he started, not sure how Dean would have learned about Lucy from a water spirit.

"Our conversation was a little more in-depth than what I told you when I picked you up," Dean replied. He turned away from Sam for a second in order to scoop up the pizza box and what remained of its contents and cram them into the trash can. "See, I think she liked me. I must've made a good impression or something when I apologized for seeing her naked. She told me that when she came by to try and drown me last night - " Dean coughed all of a sudden, as if remembering what it'd felt like to have water in his lungs. " - she could see you in your room. She's not human, so she's got a few powers 'sides whipping river water around with her mind. She saw black smoke inside you."

An incredulous little laugh popped out of Sam at that. "Yeah - yeah, that'd be a dead giveaway." He looked down when Dean stepped closer to him and unzipped his jacket. He paused after that, looking up at Sam like he was waiting for permission. Sam didn't say or do anything, hoping he'd keep going. He only started talking again when Dean pulled his jacket off of him. "Lucy saw her, too. I mean, she knew what she was, at least. It didn't take long for her to figure it out." He glanced down at his jacket as Dean dropped it on the floor and moved onto his T-shirt. Sam obligingly raised his arms to help him out, reminded viscerally of when he was young enough for Dean to dress and undress him every day. He'd probably let him do it longer than he needed him to, just because he liked the contact. "She didn't want to tell you. She was okay with letting her kill you, 'cause it'd hurt me so much."

"God, this demon just gets bitchier and bitchier," Dean muttered, before mellowing a little and pointing out, "But she did tell me." He dropped Sam's shirt on top of his jacket. "Last night...uh, maybe this morning, she - " He stopped abruptly. He'd had one hand on the button of Sam's jeans, but he let go now and looked at him with realization dawning on his face. "That was _you_ , wasn't it? You pushed past her, and she had to go along with it. Thought your voice sounded weird for a second there." He was about to go back to Sam's jeans, frowning to himself, but something else must've occurred to him, because he stopped again. "Sam...how come you didn't say 'demon'?"

Sam opened his mouth, but for a second, nothing came out because he'd honestly never even thought of that. Considering it now, he realized that it wouldn't have worked. The only reason he'd been able to break through was because of how single-mindedly focused he'd been on saving Dean. His sense of self-preservation wouldn't've been strong enough.

"I just wanted to keep you from dying," he said. "Could've been selfish on my part. Even if I tried to tell you I was possessed, that was my one shot, and I could only get one word out. There was no guarantee you would've figured it out before the naiad drowned you, and if you were dead, I would've been stuck forever." Dean was working on his pants again. Sam allowed himself a small smile and waited for him to realize that he had to take his boots off first. "Plus, I don't know how Lucy would've reacted to that. She might've decided her cover was blown - so there wouldn't've been anything to stop her from killing you. Or hurting you, or tying you up or something so you couldn't trap her or do an exorcism."

Dean exhaled loudly through his nose, but Sam doubted it was because of what he'd said. Dean had slipped his thumbs under the waistband of Sam's jeans, but now he took them out.

"Go take a seat," he said, gesturing to the bed. "Gotta get your boots off. Unless you wanna do it yourself?"

"No - no, I'm okay with you doing it," Sam replied, sinking down onto the foot of the bed. The worn-out springs let him down another six inches as soon as he was on the mattress. "Just try and hurry up so I can...do you. I'm getting cold."

"Sorry." Sam watched Dean kneel in front of him to unlace his boots and take them off. "Been a week since I could even think about touching you like this without feeling like I was hurting you."

"More like two weeks," Sam replied quietly, "and that wasn't me."

Dean looked up at him as he was sliding his left boot off his foot. "I know. It was only you once during that, for one word. And you gave me some pretty good reasons why you didn't try to save yourself." He grabbed both boots by their laces and tossed them off to the side. "But we bot know they were bullshit. You weren't thinking about any of that when you told me we were hunting a naiad."

Sam didn't say anything, just stood up in his sock feet and took his pants off.

"You were talkin' about how it was stupid of you not to talk to me two years ago. This was stupid, too, Sam, just in a different way. You shouldn't've been putting me first at that point - god, you were _possessed,_ there was a demon chewing on your soul. I think you were in more danger than I was."

"Something was trying to kill you." Sam didn't take off his boxers or socks.

"You were being tortured," Dean countered, then stopped. Some heat had made its way into his voice. Sam spent a few seconds wondering why Dean was looking at him the way that he was, then realized, with a slight jolt, that he'd unconsciously shrunk away from him.

"It was stupid," Sam agreed eventually, just to break the silence that had sprung up between them. Dean clearly didn't know what to do with it. "It was stupid of you to give me all that space, too, though. You must've thought I needed it, but, Dean...you already tried this, when it really was me acting like that, and it didn't work. You should've risked pushing me." He looked down and took a few shuffling steps closer to Dean, telling himself (he deserved this) he felt safe. "But you still understood it and got her outta me eventually, and I guess that's all that matters."

Dean blew out another loud breath, then took Sam's hands, because he must've gotten close enough for him to do that, and put them on the top button of the flannel shirt he was wearing. Sam remembered fuzzily that Dean only buttoned his flannels up when he was cold. Made sense; it was November and they were in Washington, after all.

"Okay," Dean said, as Sam fumbled with his buttons. It amazed him how hard fine motor control was after spending so long without access to his fingers; he didn't even want to think about what would happen the next time he picked up a pencil and tried to write something down. "I don't wanna fight right now. You saved my life...and that's all that matters." He'd put his hands down, but now he raised them again to undo his own buttons. "Having some trouble there?"

"I can - I can do it," Sam replied stubbornly, even as Dean finished getting his shirt open. "I'm just...out of practice. I haven't..." He trailed off.

"It's okay." Dean's voice was warm and reassuring. "Like you said, you're just outta practice. Not like you've got brain damage or anything. I can tie your shoes and stuff for you 'til you get it all back."

"Shut up," Sam muttered, fighting a smile as he slid Dean's button-up off of him and grabbed his T-shirt. That was easy, and exposed the wisp of dark golden hair between Dean's well-defined pectorals. He kept his thoughts on that when he ran into difficulty again with Dean's jeans, after he'd unlaced his boots and had him step out of them. Dean moved to help him again, but Sam got the button through its eye before he could reach it, then triumphantly unzipped him and pulled his pants down. His boxers were the last thing, and Sam didn't allow himself to hesitate before going for those. Seeing Dean entirely flaccid, even though he was fully naked after having Sam undress him, was a significant blow to the predatory picture of him that Lucy had painted.

Sam pulled off his socks, but left his own boxers alone. Dean was sitting on the ed, hands clasped, back hunched. He was looking at Sam.

"You ready to go get in the shower?" he asked tentatively. He didn't make any move at all towards the one article of clothing Sam was still wearing. He didn't even so much as glance at them. "I mean, if you want, you could go first. I'll just stay out here, put my clothes back on."

Sam was shaking his head even before Dean had finished talking. "Dean - no." He finally took his boxers off, hurrying, stumbling and almost tripping himself with his underwear. Dean, miraculously, kept a straight face. That was a relief. "I can't - leave you right now. I can't have you leave me." Naked, he moved forward, putting one hand on Dean's bare shoulder and running the fingers of his other through his thick, close-cropped hair. It was just so gratifying to finally be able to _touch_. "I need to be with you."

Instead of replying right away, Dean put his arms around Sam's waist. The hug was loose at first, but it got tighter as he leaned forward and rested his forehead against Sam's flat stomach, nose settled in the dip of his navel. Sam wrapped his own arms around Dean's head and closed his eyes, cradling him and relishing the closeness. His lower belly grew colder than it'd already been as Dean inhaled deeply. Goosebumps cropped up on his arms and legs.

"I'm not gonna leave you," Dean stated, voice muffled by Sam's flesh. "But, dude, seriously. You reek. Can you go grab all your soap and stuff so I can wash you?"

Sam dug his shampoo, conditioner, and body wash out of his backpack while Dean ducked into the bathroom to start the water. He could stand that small of a separation. Kneeling naked and with the three bottles sitting between his thighs, Sam looked at the rest of his backpack's contents. Lucy had packed them in neatly, making good use of the space. Which was something he would've appreciated if it'd been anybody but her who'd done it.

He pulled a T-shirt, clean boxers, and a pair of sweatpants out, to change into once he was clean, and tossed them onto the bed. He intentionally made a mess as he did it. Underwear unrolled, socks spilled out, the pencil case he kept his toothbrush and stuff in popped open. Sam left it like that as he grabbed his bottles, stood up, and headed into the bathroom.

The water was running and the curtain was open, but Dean was waiting for Sam instead of just getting in. Sam handed his soap over, and Dean leaned into the stall in order to set the bottles down on the floor. When he straightened up, Sam's breath caught in his throat at the water droplets that covered the pale, freckled skin of his head, shoulders, and chest.

"I missed you," he said, clearly. He stepped forward, letting Dean put a gentle hand on his waist and guide him under the spray of deliciously-warm water. It almost burned, after how long he'd spent walking around naked in the cold air of the room, but it still felt nice.

"I missed you, too," Dean replied, stepping in beside him. It was a little awkward, because of the size of the stall and the angle of the showerhead, but Sam would've gladly driven down to the Crab River and scrubbed himself in that if he'd known Dean would come with him. "Even though it wasn't even two weeks, and we were technically together the whole time...we're kinda pathetic, aren't we?"

"I don't think we should think about it that way." Sam took a step back as Dean bent down to grab his shampoo bottle. Or half a step, really, since that was all he had room for. "We...the two of us are only really happy when we're together. We put each other first without even thinking about it." He felt awkward saying this, almost afraid that Dean would make fun of him for being girly - even though he knew Dean would be compelled to handle him with kid gloves for weeks to come. "We've got what everybody wants. We've been together twenty years. We're perfect, and I think we should focus on that."

Not on the unhealthy codependence, or the homosexuality, or their blood relation to each other, or the fact that being together destroyed any and all chance either of them had at a truly normal life. Even if they settled down, like Dean had offered, they'd still be brothers, and they'd still both have been raised as hunters.

At the moment, though, at _this exact moment_ , Sam didn't think he wanted total normalcy anymore. He just wanted Dean. And he was finally aware that he'd been missing him for much longer than the two-week duration of his possession - more like two years.

"You are such a girl sometimes," Dean, meticulously washing Sam's hair now, said with a snort. Sam scowled, eyes closed. "But, uh...well said. I guess."

Because he knew that that was Dean's way of agreeing with him, Sam didn't reply, and kept his eyes closed. And Dean washed him. Every inch. It couldn't help but remind Sam of how he'd frantically scrubbed himself two years ago, after his conversation with his father. That'd been painful, though, and he'd still felt filthy when he was too worn out to continue, and this was gentle and cleansing.

It took a long time for Dean to be satisfied that Sam didn't smell like sulfur anymore. He focused entirely on Sam while they were under the water, apparently feeling like he was clean enough. He'd probably taken a pretty comprehensive shower after nearly drowning, so maybe he was. Sam certainly wasn't going to complain about the attention.

They toweled off when they were finished. Sam put on the clean clothes he'd taken out of his backpack earlier, and Dean put the T-shirt and boxers he'd worn that day back on. Sam almost objected to that, then decided it wasn't something worth starting a fight over. It was getting dark outside, and he felt warm and sleepy. It'd started raining again; he could hear it drumming on the roof of the motel as Dean pulled back the covers and they climbed into bed together. It felt right to finally be sleeping next to his brother again, an assurance of safety and love.

Sam moved as close to Dean as he could get without being on top of him as soon as they were both laying on the mattress and under the sheets. Dean put an arm over him, wrapping it around his waist and holding him. Sam fisted a hand in his shirt and tucked his head in under his chin, Dean's stubble catching on his damp hair.

That made him realize that he hadn't shaved since before he'd been possessed. Lucy had washed, fed, and rested him regularly, but she'd never shaved him. She'd never had to; even right now, his jaw was smooth. Which meant his hair hadn't grown while she was in him. Possession had held him in stasis on a cellular level. Even though that stasis must've been partial, since he'd still been able to eat and sleep, the realization filled Sam with a nameless, disgusted horror. He'd been _dead_ while the demon had been driving him.

Dean must've felt him stiffen up. They were close enough that he might even have felt his breathing go shallow - or his heart speed up, in a reversal of earlier. He moved his arm up to rub Sam's back like he had right after he'd been exorcised, right between his shoulder blades.

"I love you," he said quietly. He might not've known what else to say, since this was officially the third time that Sam had freaked out. Sam appreciated it anyway.

"Prove it," he replied, then tangled his legs with Dean's. When Dean let him do it but didn't say anything, he continued. "It's not about sex. I'm not asking you to fuck me. I want...I want to make love with you." He swallowed. "You were right: I did just get my body back. I need to get used to it again. And the only person who knows it better than I do is you."

He heard Dean's teeth click against each other as his jaw worked. "Not sure how true that is. Been almost three years since we...took our time with it."

"I know that. But I also know you didn't just _forget_ \- I know I didn't. I couldn't." Sam unclenched the hand that he had in Dean's shirt, so that his palm was laying flat against his chest. He could feel his heart thudding underneath it. "Listen. I don't want this so much as I do what comes after it. We'll be back together; we'll trust each other again. I'll know you never hurt me and never would, and you'll know I'm not gonna leave you this time."

"What about your girlfriend?" Dean asked, clearing his throat. Sam almost demanded, "What _about_ her?" before it occurred to him that Dean hadn't asked because he was genuinely worried about Sam wanting to go back to her. He'd brought Jess up in an effort to derail him, because he was afraid. That confused Sam, because he didn't know what Dean could possibly be afraid of here, but he set out to reassure him anyway.

"First of all," Sam began. He drew back from Dean, pushed himself up on one elbow, and looked down at him. "She's my _ex_ -girlfriend. We broke up 'cause I wound up telling her about you and me, and she practically gave us her blessing." Dean's eyebrows all but slammed together at that. Sam was aware that he'd never mentioned that part to him. "And second...you saw her when you broke into our apartment. I don't know if you noticed or not, but she's a green-eyed blonde. She's tall. She can hold her liquor, she can stitch a wound, and she even called me 'Sammy' 'til I made her stop. Jess is basically girl-you, Dean. I begged her to go out with me because I thought I couldn't live without her." A faint smile slipped through as Sam spoke. "I took a Psych course. That's called transference. I couldn't live without you, I wanted _you_ \- even when I thought I hated you. I want you even more now. I need you. I need you to show me you love me, I need you to - to _protect_ me...for now at least. And I need to take care of you, too." He moved his hand lower on Dean's chest, to his ribs. He'd definitely lost weight. "Clearly."

Eyes fixed on him, Dean sucked in a deep breath. His chest swelled under Sam's hand. Letting it out through his nose, he asked, "Are you absolutely, a hundred percent sure that this is what you want? Right now?"

"Nothing will be right again 'til we do this," Sam replied earnestly, fully convinced of how badly both of them needed to reconsummate their relationship. "We tried ending it, and that turned out to be total shit. We tried keeping our hands off each other, and taking it slow, and Dean - I'm done with that. I was...hearing Dad. Feeling guilty and wrong every time we got close." He licked his lips and swallowed. "I don't give a rat's ass what he thinks anymore, though, and I know this is right." He leaned down, getting so close to Dean that their eyelashes almost touched and his lips brushed against his brother's as he spoke. "Remind me who I am. Remind me who I love, and who loves me."

Dean studied Sam's eyes for ages. Sam wasn't worried; he knew he wouldn't find anything there but sincerity and conviction. He must've been satisfied by that, because, finally, he closed his eyes and raised his head minutely, so he could kiss Sam. Sam's own lids immediately dropped. It was warm and chaste, at first. Then their mouths opened. Sam wished they would've remembered to brush their teeth, but the feeling of connection overpowered the less-than-refreshing flavor.

"I'll go get a condom," Dean said huskily when they broke. He moved to get out of bed, but Sam stopped him by pressing down, only slightly, on his chest.

"We don't need one," he replied, shaking his head. "There's some lotion in my bag. No scent, won't burn me."

Dean looked uncomfortable, and for one panicky second, Sam thought that he was going to ask why he had unscented lotion in his backpack. He was about to open his mouth to babble about being twenty-two and, when he was packing, not knowing how long he was going to be away from his girlfriend, but Dean spoke up before he could make an idiot of himself.

"Sammy, y'know, I wasn't exactly...well, I didn't save myself while you were gone," Dean said. Sam's insides twinged slightly at the nickname that Lucy had appropriated, but once again, he didn't say anything. Dean had earned the right to call him that. "I mean, I would've liked to, but I didn't know if you were coming back or not, and Dad was on my case, and it was _two years_. And I'm pretty sure I always gloved up, but sometimes I was drunk, and I still could've - "

"I didn't, either," Sam interrupted. "Save myself, I mean. And I didn't always use protection." By which he meant that he and Jess had mutually decided that a condom wasn't necessary around the third or fourth time they had sex. Even here, though, even right now, it'd be embarrassing to admit he'd only ever slept with two people, so he kept it vague. "But I know I'm clean, and I've seen you naked a few times now. You look okay to me." He needed (wanted) _needed_ this so badly right now that, basically, the risk of catching something off Dean wasn't even a real factor. The small part of him that was always rational hoped that wouldn't come back to literally bite him in the ass later. "We don't need a condom. We can just stay here."

"You're being stupid again," Dean stated, looking unimpressed.

"I don't care." Defiance welled up in Sam like bile, hot and bitter. It was hardly an unfamiliar feeling for him. "I know I'm ready for this. I - "

Dean lifted himself again, higher this time because Sam had drawn back, and kissed him. It shut him up, and calmed him down. Painted everything that'd happened since the exorcism in a soft, rosy light and assured him that everything that happened from here on out would turn out okay. It reminded Sam that he didn't want to yell at or argue with Dean; he wanted to connect and make up and fix everything.

"Okay," Dean agreed, when Sam reluctantly pulled away to breathe. The natural raspy note in his voice had thickened. Sam could feel something else thickening against his thigh, which was slotted between Dean's legs. "I'm gonna be honest. I got no doubt you're ready right now, but after what you just went through, and...Jesus, just about everything else...I'm worried you're gonna regret this later."

Sam's first impulse was to vehemently deny that, but it wasn't like Dean didn't have cause to be worried. There'd been so many times where they'd been getting close, making progress, and he'd had to pull back and go fetal because of his own overpowering issues. He probably had even more of those now, after Lucy. In fact, he was sure he did. Asking Dean to set himself up for that all over again was just...selfish. Maybe it was even selfish to ask him to stay with somebody as broken as Sam currently was.

So he didn't say anything and laid back down. He took his leg away fro Dean's groin, hoping that the beginnings of an erection he had would go away on their own. He'd begun to stir himself, too, and maybe he could fix that just by falling asleep.

That didn't seem to be Dean's solution, though. Sam had closed his eyes, but he opened them again when Dean laid a hand on the side of his head and began stroking his hair. They were still close, and Dean was looking at him over their thin, grayed-out pillows, green eyes soft.

"But maybe you're right about this," Dean said. "And even if you ain't, pretty sure we've established at least twice now that I'm stupid, too."

Sam shifted slightly on top of the mattress, caught off-guard by Dean's sudden one-eighty. "But you just said - "

"I know what I said," Dean interrupted, sounding slightly impatient. "And I know what _you_ said, too, but I think you know you better than I do, so if you say you're ready for this, you probably are. I feel like an asshole saying no to something you want so badly right now, too..." He offered Sam a smile. "And we gotta be doing something wrong if _I'm_ the wet blanket."

Sam smiled back despite himself, almost laughing, and dropped his eyes, still unsure. Dean had brought up some good points, made Sam realize some unpleasant things about himself. He wasn't quite so convinced that this was a good idea anymore. He let Dean kiss him again, though - threw himself into it, actually, as he felt blood start to move downward again.

"I can prove I love you," Dean murmured against Sam's wet, needy mouth after a while. Their breath puffed against each other's faces. "I can help you through it if you do have second thoughts later. I'm in here for the long haul, Sammy, no matter what's going on with you. We can do this. We'll be okay."

Sam pressed as close to Dean as he could get again, and led him into another kiss. He was tired of talking, especially now that he clearly didn't have to try and justify himself anymore. Dean was probably tired of talking, too, after all the throat-shredding yelling he'd done during the exorcism. Sam was confident he could get his agreement, which Dean had succeeded in bringing back in full force, across with this.

They kissed for a while, moving against each other with two layers of fabric between them to work up their arousal. Dean held Sam, but easily let him go when he rolled over and climbed out of bed. He dug through his backpack. Of course Lucy had known what the lotion had been intended for and what it could be used for, and of course she'd hidden it. And of course Sam hadn't noticed where she'd put it, because he'd been too busy feeling sorry for himself to pay attention while she was packing.

Not being able to find the little tube was more frustrating than it probably should've been - and Sam didn't have such a high opinion of himself that he couldn't admit it was partially because he was horny. A bigger part of it, though, had to do with how anxious he was for things to go back to normal between him and Dean, and how badly he wanted this to go perfectly. It'd be their first real time in years, after all.

Dean hadn't said anything, but Sam could feel him looking at him, and it added some pressure. He felt like he had to hurry up and find it before his brother lost interest.

"Y'know, I could - " Dean started, after what felt like twenty minutes but had probably only been one or two.

"Found it," Sam exclaimed with relief he was sure Dean could hear, at the same time. It'd been in one of the side pockets, under a pack of tissues. Of course.

He climbed back up onto the bed with the tube, which Dean took from him and set aside for the moment. Kissing Sam again, much to Sam's relief (since it proved he hadn't lost interest), he moved to take his shirt off again, taking the lead, then stopped and pulled away.

"You want me to - ?"

"Of course," Sam replied. In all the times they'd had sex before, Sam had never been inside Dean. He'd never wanted to be. He'd been on top plenty, but control wasn't what he needed right now - ironically enough, considering he'd been a prisoner in his own body for two weeks and had badly wanted to get control back that whole time.

"Figured I should make sure," Dean replied, starting in on Sam's shirt again. "Didn't wanna spook you by doing something you weren't expecting."

"I love you," Sam blurted, breath hot, as he raised his arms for Dean to pull his shirt over. He grabbed him as soon as they were free, needing more contact, more kissing.

"I love you, too," Dean panted as soon as Sam let his mouth go long enough for him to talk. He touched the waistband of Sam's boxers, then appeared to change his mind and pulled his own shirt off instead. Their bare flesh rubbed together, a thin lather of sweat starting to build between them. It was enough to bring Sam to full attention within minutes, and he could feel Dean rising the rest of the way against him.

"Prove it," Sam whispered between Dean's parted lips, saying it for the third time that night. This time, Dean finally did.

He took off his boxers first, then Sam's. Sam moved his hips and legs in a fluid motion to help him out, which had his erection bobbing against his stomach as soon as it was free. He could feel Dean's eyes on it, or at least what he could make out of it in the dim, watery light coming through the rain now that the sun had set. He couldn't blame him, considering how long it'd been since they'd seen each other like this. Dean didn't touch Sam's cock, though. Maybe he was afraid to.

He _did_ touch him lower, after grabbing the lotion and squeezing what sounded like half the tube onto the fingers of his right hand. A delicious shudder rolled through Sam when he felt the coldness of it meeting his entrance, which fluttered. It'd been so long since he'd had anything against the sensitive skin there.

The lotion, which definitely wasn't lube, felt weird as Dean worked it around, but it was slippery and it didn't hurt when it wound up inside him, so it did its job. Sam lad back with his eyes closed, head propped up on the pillows and legs bent and spread, and lost himself in the feeling of Dean's fingers moving in and out of him. It was made new and enjoyable all over again by how much time had passed since it'd last happened.

It had been a long time - a really long time - so it took a while for Dean to work Sam open. Sam felt sure that he was looser than he'd been at thirteen, as a virgin, but he'd definitely tightened up since the last time he'd had Dean inside him, two years ago. He hadn't touched that part of himself once while he'd been at college, only paying attention to the outside of his body when he absolutely had to masturbate. He hadn't let anybody else touch it, either, going for a girlfriend instead of a boyfriend. It'd represented what he'd done with his older brother, what'd disgusted his father so much, so he'd been afraid of it. It'd been neglected - a lot like the part of him that'd still loved Dean and always would.

His fingers didn't come anywhere near Sam's prostate while he was loosening him up. He was glad - he was already fully aroused, and he didn't want to run the risk of coming before Dean was inside him.

"You ready?" Dean asked softly, and Sam jerked just a little, wondering if he'd somehow fallen asleep for a minute or two. Especially since Dean had taken his hand away at some point without him noticing. It was possible, he guessed; it'd been a pretty rough day, and despite how badly his body wanted sex after getting a little taste of it, he was just so relaxed right now.

"Of course I am," Sam whispered back, and raised his hands into the darkness. Dean took them. Both of his own were warm, and the right one was moist. He gave Sam's hands a squeeze, then moved down to grip his shoulders. Sam took hold of the muscle-rounded ridges of Dean's hips at the same time.

When Dean entered him, it felt like coming home.

* * *

Sam was so tired, after they finished, that he couldn't feel the mattress underneath him. Or the sheets on top of him, or the clothes that Dean had helped him put back on. Every nerve in his body, though, was tuned into the arm that his brother had tossed heavily across him, and the leg he'd slotted in between both of Sam's own, and the length of his torso, which was pressed against Sam's spine. He was warm and solid. He could definitely feel him.

Sam was exhausted, but it was probably due to the fact he'd had a demon dragged out of him inch by inch earlier, not the sex. The sex had been slow and gentle, almost cautious on Dean's part, and there'd been more than enough time for Sam to really savor it. He didn't think it'd taken much out of him. If anything, it'd given a lot back to him that he'd thought he lost.

"How d'you feel?" Dean asked. Sam felt his breath puffing in the hair on the back of his head as he talked.

"Tired," Sam replied. He could do pillow talk, just so long as it didn't go on too long. "Good, though." He paused, trying to find a better way to put it. "Better than I have in a while, I think. A long while."

"Good. Really glad to hear that." Being held by Dean, under the covers and in the dark, it was easy for Sam to forget that he was technically the bigger brother. It was easy to forget that they'd ever been apart, too, and that there was anyone out there who wanted to hurt them or didn't approve of what they had. "You better get some sleep. Don't worry about getting up before checkout - we'll pay for another night if we need to. You've gotta rest. Get over this."

"We're leaving?" Sam mumbled, brought back from the warm, blurry edge of sleep by that. Logically, he knew they couldn't hunker down in a cheap motel in Lamona for long, and he didn't want to, either. But thinking about facing the world - even through the windows of the Impala - filled him with dread. Or maybe it didn't fill him completely, but it would've if he'd been more awake.

"Figured we'd go to Bobby's, and lay low there for a while," Dean replied. There was a short note in his voice that made Sam think he'd rather have them both sleeping than talking. He must've forgotten than he was the one who'd started the conversation. "I know he'd like to see us - and even if we don't _need_ a break, I think we deserve one."

"Bobby's," Sam repeated. Almost all of his memories of the scrapyard in South Dakota and the man who owned it were positive, and at the very least, he knew for a fact it was a safe place. It was outside the city limits of Sioux Falls, and with the dozens of layers of wards, nothing could get in. Not demons, not monsters. Nothing but humans, and there was only one of those Sam was afraid of, and he hadn't shown any interest in him for years or in Dean for months. "I'd...really like that." Sort of a dry run at leaving the life behind and being almost normal with each other, Sam thought to himself. Hopefully he'd be ready to hunt again, to do his duty, after a few weeks off, but if he wasn't...well, they'd've had practice. "Hey - y'know," Sam began suddenly, something from years ago popping into his sleepy mind, "when I was little, and we were staying out at his place for...weeks on end 'cause Dad was working, then I used to wish Bobby was our dad." He paused, then admitted, "Or at least mine" before he could think it over.

Because everything would've been different if they hadn't been related. It would've been different even if they'd still been brothers, but Bobby had been their dad. If they hadn't left every couple weeks. If they'd attended all twelve years of school in one district. If they hadn't grown up hunting.

If, if, if. Story of his life.

Dean didn't reply right away, and after a few seconds, Sam thought he might've fallen asleep. He hoped not - even though what they'd just done had brought them back together, one of his selfish childhood fantasies wasn't exactly a great note to end on. Eventually, though, Dean shifted a little and cleared his throat.

"Speaking of dad," he said quietly. "Where d'you s'pose he is?"

"I don't know," Sam replied blankly, not sure why Dean was asking him. Then, with a sudden rush of viciousness that didn't match his current state of exhaustion, he added, "I hope he's dead."

Once again, Dean didn't say anything, or even move. Not right away. Breathing shallowly, shocked by his own outburst, Sam waited. There was no way Dean'd fallen asleep after that. If he had, Sam was definitely going to wake him up.

"You don't mean that," Dean murmured, just as Sam was about to roll over and check to see if his eyes were closed. His hand was resting on Sam's arm, and he rubbed his elbow with a thumb.

"No," Sam admitted after a couple of seconds, and it was true.

He was almost asleep once again, having calmed down and relaxed, when Dean asked him, "You still wanna go talk to that crazy pervert ghost lady in California?"

Sam snorted, almost unconsciously scooting back against Dean, silently asking to be held more tightly. _"No."_


	33. Chapter Thirty-three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, here it is: the last chapter. Over three years after the first one. I was still a minor when I started this story - that's weird to think about.
> 
> I almost don't know what to do with my life.
> 
> But I guess I'll procrastinate and watch Netflix, which was what I did most of the time while I was writing it.
> 
> And heeeeey, who remembers I have a Tweetbook account? Banishing_Rune! I'm super sarcastic and most people think that's funny. Sometimes I even post updates about writing projects.
> 
> When I'm actually writing, which we all know happens roughly as often as the appearance of Halley's comet.
> 
> Finally: huge thank-you to my editor decemberdove, without whom this story probably wouldn't exist - not in its current excellent form, definitely.

Even once that freaking demon was out of Sam, hopefully for good, it wasn't like everything was automatically sunshine and roses. Dean hadn't been expecting it to be, though, so even if that wasn't exactly okay, it was at least unsurprising. A good twenty years of hunting had taught him all about fallout. Closing a case almost always solved one problem and made ten smaller ones - especially when a member of your team or duo or whatever had been right smack dab in the middle of said case.

They spent three weeks at Bobby's, doing what Sam rather bitterly called "convalescing." He didn't openly object to the time they were taking off for him to recover, though, and if he had, Dean would've pulled rank (age) and forced him to keep his ass firmly in Sioux Falls, reading, sleeping, and watching the first snows of the season roll in through the window of their room. This was worse than anything either of them had ever been through before, except maybe their two-year separation, and Dean knew Sam needed downtime. They probably would've stayed longer if he hadn't had Dean to act as a crutch. Or a therapist, or a distraction, or even a wet blanket if he felt like rushing into something again. Whatever he needed him to be.

When they'd first showed up, without bothering to call ahead, Bobby had stared at them from the doorway for a second, then wrapped both of them in a bone-crushing hug. Then he marched them inside, sat them down on the couch, and delivered a blistering lecture that had Dean feeling around eight years old by the end of it...because he hadn't heard from either of them since he'd told Dean about the devil's trap, so for all he knew, both of them could've been dead, possessed, or at least separated and hating each other. Dean would've tried to explain that pretty much all of his attention had been taken up by having Sam back, but he didn't think that would've calmed Bobby down any.

Sam had a lot of nightmares, mostly loud, violent ones that both Dean and Bobby understood. He had times where he was quiet and pale and couldn't seem to do anything but sit there, and there were days where he couldn't stand Dean touching him, or seeing him naked, or even being in the same room as him. Then there were other days when he was all panicked and feverish and couldn't stand to be out of contact with Dean.

When those days (and nights) came, they tried to be quiet, but sometimes they weren't. Bobby had to have heard. He had to've seen that they'd pushed the two beds in their room together, too, and noticed that they both came downstairs with wet hair after he heard the shower running. He never said anything about it, though. Actually, he was downright warm towards them, treating them like family - just like he'd used to. He seemed glad they'd shown up together. That made Dean wonder how long he'd known.

He was helpful in other ways, too. Like making sure this'd never happen again. Charms would've worked, but they could be misplaced, which was why the two brothers ended up getting a symbol out of one of Bobby's books tattooed over their hearts: a pentagram inside a flaming circle, in black ink. They matched. Dean liked that.

Sam got better, with rest and Dean doing his best to give him what he needed (and, not to pat himself on the back or anything, but that was pretty hard, what with it seesawing back and forth between two different extremes practically every other day). He bounced back a lot quicker than Dean had expected him to. He didn't feel like talking about his possession very often, but when he did, it sounded like he'd been through literal hell for almost two weeks.

Dean didn't say a word about hunting while they were holed up in South Dakota - or about looking for Dad. For one, he wasn't feeling too warmly towards the bastard right now, after finding out about how he'd lied to him and what he'd done to Sam. Two, even if (and Dean had gone to great pains to put that "if" on the table) they decided to get back in the game without trekking all over God's green earth to find John Winchester, Sam had to be the one who made the first move.

Dean realized now that he'd really underestimated his little brother's resiliency and strength, because he'd tentatively predicted that first move coming somewhere around the dawn of 2006. Instead, he found Sam in jeans and boots at the three-week mark, just after a low-key but, in Dean's opinion, awesome Thanksgiving. Sam was using the wifi that Bobby had grudgingly invested in last year. He looked up from his laptop, smiling, when Dean stepped into their room.

"Found something," he said. "Looks like your standard restless spirit. Should be nice and easy - perfect for both of us to ease back in."

Dean knew he should've asked Sam if he was sure about not going back to school. But he didn't, because he was afraid he'd say no, and he was afraid he wouldn't be able to handle civilian life for more than a few months. Besides, maybe Sam was just taking a gap year or something. A hunting year between his undergraduate stuff and law school. He could still be planning to go back later, and maybe Dean would feel more confident by then.

So they left for Kentucky a few days later. And Sam was right: it was just a ghost. A nice, easy ghost.

There was another ghost after that. Then a cursed music box. Then something they'd suspected was a witch at work, but which had just turned out to be a series of freak accidents (it did happen, just not that often). Christmas passed, then New Year's. It wasn't hard to build up a rhythm, both at work and in the relationship they were steadily rebuilding. Sex helped a lot. Talking helped more, but to Dean's relief, they'd already gotten most of that out of the way right after Lucy had been exorcised.

It was another couple weeks before Dean realized his drinking had gone way down, because of a casual comment Sam made about it. He knew the reason: he now constantly had that good feeling that usually only came to him when he was drunk. He was happy for the first time in years. He and Sam were back together, really back together, and they were hunting, and it was going awesome. Plus, they'd reconnected with Bobby. Things were damn near perfect, by Dean's standards.

But God or somebody was clearly allergic to his happiness, because as per usual, the universe threw a wrench into the middle of everything.

It was night. They'd debunked the witch thing earlier that day and found a few possible new cases, but they'd decided to spend one more night in their surprisingly nice motel before deciding on a location and shipping out the next morning. The "hunt" had been a frustration and a disappointment, since they'd been wasting time on something stupid while deaths they could actually prevent were happening in other places ( _again_ ), but the sex that Sam had initiated after dinner had helped both of them feel a lot better.

They were all cleaned up now, resting next to each other in one bed with their fingers loosely tangled together, waiting to fall asleep. It wouldn't be long - coming always sucked the wind right out of Dean's sails, especially when there was a long day of hard work on top of it. Then his phone rang.

Sam groaned loudly, pulling his hand away from Dean's and rolling over. "Oh, come on. You gotta be kidding me."

"Sorry," Dean apologized, in a mumble, as he sat up and groped across the surface of the nightstand that he'd tossed his cellphone onto earlier. Sam rolled back over and touched the hand that he was pushing into the mattress to support his weight.

"Just don't answer it," he suggested, then yawned so widely Dean practically heard his jaw crack. "I can stand another thirty seconds of 'Smoke on the Water' if it means I get to go to sleep."

"Might be important, though," Dean replied, finally locating the phone. He'd forgotten that he'd plugged it in to charge. When he yanked it towards his ear, the cord _twang_ ed taut before it even reached his shoulder. "Could be Bobby or somebody."

Sam muttered some gibberish that sounded vaguely like a suggestion of where Bobby could go and what he could do with himself when he got there, then pulled away from Dean with a sigh of defeat and retreated underneath the bedding. Dean smirked with one side of his mouth. Sam could go for days with no sleep as long as he kept busy, but once he laid down, he needed at least five hours. And even if he got that, good luck getting him up and functioning before six-thirty if there weren't lives on the line.

Dean pressed the "answer call" button, but had to duck his head in order to put his ear to the phone without ripping the plug out of the wall. "Yeah. This is Dean." Anybody who had the number to this phone would also have his last name.

"Hey, Dean," the caller answered, coolly.

It took him a second to place the voice. Which was stupid, even if he was tired and had come hard less than half an hour ago. He'd heard that voice every single day for his entire life, up until a few months ago. His body recognized it before his mind did, squaring his shoulders and pulling his spine ramrod straight.

"Dad?" he asked in something just a little too hoarse to be a whisper. Beside him in the bed, Sam must've reflexively gone fetal, because the covers were suddenly pulled tight across Dean's lap as he twisted them up. Dean could only imagine what he was feeling right now, but he couldn't even look at him to check if he was okay, much less try to comfort him. Not with their father on the phone.

"We need to have a talk," John Winchester continued.

"Yes, sir," Dean replied promptly and automatically - even as resentment bubbled up inside him. They sure as shit _did_ need to have a talk. A couple of talks, actually. The first could be about where Dad had been and why he hadn't so much as dropped Dean a text to let him know he was alive since he went MIA, and the second could be about how he'd lied straight to both Dean and Sam's faces.

None of those totally-legitimate complaints seemed to be able to make it out of Dean's mouth, though. It felt like they got stuck in his throat...along with all the others he'd swallowed, for the sake of their family, in the twenty-some years since his mother had died.

"I've been talking to some people," Dad went on, and Dean wanted to scream _Who?!_ Because he'd been talking to some people, too. He'd been talking to everyone. Caleb, Pastor Jim, Bobby (even though he technically hadn't called that last one about Dad's disappearing act specifically). Others, too. Hunters he hadn't seen in years, either because injury or illness had put them outta the game or because him and Dad had only ever worked with them once, and barely remembered. He'd asked every single one of them if they had any idea where his dad might've gone, or if they'd heard from him since he left. No one had. "They say you're working with your brother."

Dean couldn't imagine who'd been saying that, since the only person he knew for sure had seen them was Bobby, and he doubted he'd rat them out. There wasn't much use denying it if Dad already knew, though, so he swallowed with a throat that felt like it'd shrunk down to the size of a coffee stirrer and carefully said, "That's right."

"Thought Sam was at school."

"He was. Semester hadn't started yet, though." Dean wasn't gonna tell Dad that Sam had applied to law school and been gearing up for an interview. He'd been mad enough when he'd learned his major was Criminal Justice, during that one phone call shortly after Sam'd first left - he'd thought it was useless. "I went and picked him up."

"Why?" It was just one word. There was no way it could've conveyed everything that Dean felt like it had.

"I needed his help." Dean swallowed again. "I was looking for you."

He wondered what Sam was doing. Or what he was thinking, at least. He hadn't moved a muscle or said a word since Dean had all but told him who the call was from. He might've even stopped breathing.

Dad snorted, sounding less than impressed. "And I'm sure he's just been a ton of help, after two goddamn years on the bench. You and I both know why you went and got him, Dean - didn't we talk about this?"

Dean couldn't manage anything but another, weaker, "Yes, sir."

"If I'd've thought this'd be a problem again, I might not've..." Dad trailed off, angry, and Dean pictured him shaking his head. "What'd Sammy do when you showed up?"

That brought back the way Sam had acted at first, and why. The memories loosened Dean's throat slightly, letting just a couple drops of the anger he'd felt when he first learned about what Dad had done to Sam, to both of them, slip through.

"He was happy to help," Dean said, with a slight edge. "He was worried sick about you, once I told him how long you'd been gone. We both were."

There was a short silence, which Dean thought might've been because of shock. Then, flatly, Dad said, "I think I'd better come talk to you two in person."

"I - " Dean started, but Dad cut him off. Which might've been a good thing, since he didn't have any idea what he was going to say.

"Don't bother, I know where you are," Dad said. "Nice job on that 'witch,' by the way. You were right this summer, you're definitely ready for solo hunts." His voice was sarcastic. Dean flinched. "I'll be there tomorrow or the day after. _Stay put_."

After snapping out that last command, he hung up. Dean slowly, stiffly took the phone away from his ear and stared at it once it was in his field of vision, wondering if it was normal for his whole body to feel kinda numb. He supposed he could call back, but the number wasn't one of the ones he recognized as belonging to Dad's cells, so he could've been using a payphone he'd already walked away from. Dean told himself there wasn't a point.

It was a long time before he could look at Sam, before he could even move enough to turn his head. He didn't know how long, and it didn't matter. Swallowing, he put the phone back on the nightstand with one hand, and laid the other on top of the lump of blankets that was his younger brother as gently as he could. Sam flinched at the contact.

When he didn't say anything, or move again, Dean cleared his throat. He had to do it a few times before he felt like he could talk. "So. Dad's alive."

"Clearly," Sam replied with a raspy voice. A second later, he almost spat out, "What'd the bastard have to say for himself?"

Dean shook his head, hearing the fear behind the anger in Sam's words and feeling helpless. He hadn't gotten anything out of Dad to account for the past couple of months, hadn't even been able to ask, and as mad at himself as he was about that, he was pretty sure Sam would've been in the same boat as him. Hell, he probably wouldn't have even managed to say anything, if Dad had called his cell instead of Dean's.

Sam wouldn't be able to see him shaking his head, facing away from Dean and with his own buried under the covers. So, heavily, Dean said, "He knows." A few seconds passed, then he added, "Again."

Sam immediately tensed under the hand that Dean had on him, pulling himself into knots of coiled muscle. It had to hurt. Despite that shocked reaction, though, he quietly said, "I figured. So what'd he say about it?"

"He's gonna come talk to us." Dean licked dry lips. "He knows where we are. He'll either be here tomorrow or...or the day after."

Once again, Sam's reaction was instant. First he pulled away from Dean, then he sat up, sheets and blanket and comforter sliding off of his upper body and his hair falling into his eyes. Dean reached over to grab his shoulder, but Sam hunched up before he could touch him. He brought his legs to his chest and wrapped both arms around them, then buried his face in his knees.

"Sam - " Dean started, concerned.

"I can't do it." Sam cut him off, voice muffled by the comforter. "I hate it, Dean, but I'm not - I'm not strong enough. Maybe if it was a year from now, but not...here."

Dean got it. Dad finding out the first time had been worse for Sam (even if he didn't quite understand that, seeing as Sam hadn't been the one with ninety-nine percent of his faith and respect invested in the man), and even with how little he'd talked about what Lucy had done to him, Dean understood that she'd taken an already-crippling wound and ripped it open wide enough to swallow practically everything that Sam was. He was still recovering from being held captive and tortured inside his own body, and facing one of the main roots of all the problems he had today was just too much for him right now.

"Well, we can't run away," Dean said, apologetically. "He told us to stay put."

As Sam raised his head from his knees and stared at Dean through red, swollen eyelids, he realized those hadn't been the right words. What he'd _meant_ was that, even if they left, Dad would just track them down again anyway, and then he'd be even madder than he already was. What Sam had _heard_ was obviously very different.

"Right - and you always do every single thing he tells you," Sam said. The bitterness in his voice was years old. "Took his side every time he and I went at it over me staying out the year at one school. Dragged me out gravedigging at midnight because he called and asked you to. Only came and got me to help you look for him."

"I didn't - " Dean began. It wasn't exactly news to him that that was how Sam viewed their childhood, especially when he was at rock bottom like this, but it still stung to hear him say it.

"Shut up," Sam interrupted, and Dean flashed back, with an impact like a punch in the gut, to his possession. Before he'd known what was going on. "He programmed you _perfectly_. You've been a good little soldier for as long as I can remember, but it didn't quite take with me. That's probably the only reason _this_ happened." He gestured back and forth between the two of them. Something about it looked disgusted. "Bet you anything he blames me for screwing you up. You were always his golden boy."

Dean swallowed, the mouthful of saliva moving painfully past the hot coal that'd somehow wound up in the middle of his chest while Sam was talking. And then, for the first time since he'd figured out Sam's weird behavior was due to a demon, he got angry.

It would've been easy, and it would've felt good, to yell. Or to leave. Or to kick Sam out, because if he really thought that Dean and Dad were so buddy-buddy, maybe it'd be for the best if he legged it - again - and left Dean alone to deal with their father. Again.

Dean breathed deep and didn't let it out, though. He wasn't the twenty-four-year-old who'd picked fights with strangers in bars anymore, because the hole in him that'd made him do that had been filled back in. He could stay calm enough to realize that he and Sam were both pissed for the same reason: they were scared. Yelling wouldn't solve anything.

"He blames me, actually," Dean said, quietly. "'Cause I'm older. I should've been able to put a stop to it - or never even have started it in the first place."

Sam snorted. "And you know that...how?"

"He told me," Dean replied. "Often as he could remember to, along with a whole bunch of other stuff."

Sam had turned away, but now he looked at him again.

"You left," Dean said. "I stayed. With him, and him knowing. For two years."

Sam didn't really want to talk about his possession, and that was fine with Dean, because he didn't really want to talk about those two years. He regretted bringing them up now, actually, but at least he could see the anger draining out of Sam, so it'd done some good.

"I'm sorry," Sam mumbled. "I didn't...think..."

"Nope," Dean agreed, even though he knew that probably wasn't what Sam had meant. He needed an outlet for the anger he'd been feeling. Just a small one. Sam being back didn't mean he was a Buddhist monk or anything. They sat next to each other, silent, both of them looking down at their laps, for around three or four minutes. Eventually, Sam spoke up. Voice quiet, he asked, "What're we gonna do?"

Dean had been expecting that question, actually, and for once, he actually had an answer. He cleared his throat and shifted on the mattress, looking over at Sam.

"Same thing we used to do," he said, and Sam lifted his head. "We'll move into a room with two beds. We won't touch in front of Dad, won't talk about it unless he brings it up, won't tell him the truth. Then when he leaves again - "

"But what if he doesn't?" Sam interrupted. "This is the first time in our entire lives he's taken off without telling at least one of us. What if it was a one-time thing? And even if he wasn't planning on that, what if he feels like he has to stick around 'cause we need him to keep an eye on us?"

A cold ball of lead settled heavily in Dean's gut, because he hadn't thought of that. He'd just pretty much assumed that Dad would drift out of the picture again as soon as they could convince him they hadn't fallen back into their old habits. But that was stupid, because Sam was right: he'd never done this before. From the point that Sam had hit double digits to when he'd left, the three of them had been an inseparable team, and that'd been a system that worked - and in Dean's experience, their father wasn't in the habit of fixing things that weren't broken.

Maybe he'd been hunting something he didn't want or trust Dean around. Maybe he'd just gotten sick of him and needed a vacation. Whatever it was was clearly over now, since he'd contacted them. And there was no reason to assume that things weren't going to go right back to the way they were.

Dean swallowed. "If he does end up sticking around," he started, carefully, "no big deal. Nothing new. He can't watch us all the time, and we've kept it hid before - "

Sam interrupted again. "So what happens if I don't _want_ to hide it this time around?" Dean had been keeping his tone pretty low while he tried to work through this, so Sam's angry voice was shockingly loud. He was just a firecracker tonight.

In his rawest, most honest heart, Dean didn't want to hide it, either. He felt impossibly exhausted just thinking about another twenty years of sneaking around (especially because they'd have to be even sneakier now that Dad knew), but "We have to."

"Why?" Sam challenged, but he didn't sound angry anymore. That was a relief. "What's the worst thing he can possibly do to us if he gets here and finds out we really are back together?"

"Well, take us out and shoot us, for one," Dean said with a knee-jerk laugh, even though it wasn't funny.

"D'you really think he'd do that, though?" Sam asked. "He yelled at us when he found out. He didn't hit us, and he barely threw me around. And even if he tried, d'you really think we couldn't take him? I'm taller than he is now, and we're both younger, and there're two of us."

Dean drew in a deep breath. Even with how pissed he was at Dad for pulling a disappearing act and lying to him about talking to Sam two years ago, the idea of actually, physically fighting with him gave him a queasy feeling.

"Look, Sammy," he started, and silently swore at himself for using the nickname when Sam's face ticked. He'd never said anything about it, which made Dean think he didn't know he reacted that way when Dean called him that, but obviously, he had some new complex about "Sammy." Probably something that'd happened during the possession, just like all his other new complexes. "I ain't looking forward to it, either, and I'm sure as hell not any happier with him than you are, but...he's our dad."

"I know he is." And now Sam was calm, thinking everything through. This wasn't how they usually argued - the fight they'd had about fifteen minutes earlier was way more typical. Might be a good idea, Dean thought, to try real hard to help Sam keep this one slow and quiet, so they could work out a solution that'd make both of them happy. "And that's why I get why this - us - upset him so much. Upsets him so much, still. I mean, if _I_ had kids, and I found out that they were..."

He trailed off. Dean stayed silent and let him gather up the rest of whatever he was gonna say, because kids - especially Sam's kids - were not a subject he was even comfortable being in the same state as. Eventually, Sam continued.

"If he's gonna see it as a problem, though, then he's gonna have to share some of the blame for it," he said, talking more quietly now. He'd straightened his legs and leaned back against the headboard. Dean copied his position, shifting all his weight onto one side so he was angled towards Sam as he listened to him. "I don't think it's unfair to ask him to just _live_ with it. After all, he was the one who decided we were gonna grow up hunting, and if we hadn't...we probably wouldn't have turned out like this."

That bothered Dean. A lot. Hunting and Sam were just about his entire life, and losing one had broken him. Without both, he just couldn't really see himself existing. Not like he was now, at least.

But Sam had a point. They'd grown up in a bubble, they'd been each other's only constant and comfort. Dean could agree with him while still resolving to never think about what life would've been like without hunting ever again. If Dad had just put all the weird parts of Mom's death outta his mind and kept on fixing cars.

Yeah. Best not to think about that, or wonder about it, or wish for it. There was no changing the past, nobody got any second chances, and anything could've happened if just one tiny thing had been different. Good or bad. Maybe this was the best of all possible outcomes.

And that possibility just completely sucked ass, but oddly enough, it was also the tiniest bit comforting. Dean felt guilty about that.

"So what d'you wanna do?" he asked Sam, to take his mind off everything that'd just run through it. "I know we aren't a textbook incest case. Not abusive or anything like that." He still remembered how much it'd shaken him to find out that what he and Sam had was the exception, not the rule. To find out that, to most people, it was sick and wrong. "No danger of you popping out a two-headed baby." Sam almost smirked at that. "Might be a little too wrapped up in each other, but that's it. If you're totally objective, then that's the only bad thing about us." Dean sighed, sitting up straight and running a hand through his hair. "No way is Dad gonna let us explain all that, though. And even if we shouted over him 'til he heard every last piece, it wouldn't matter. He wouldn't understand."

"He doesn't have to understand, though," Sam said. "I'm not even sure I'd want him to understand, if he could. He doesn't have to accept it, either, or like it. He can leave again, if he wants. It didn't seem to be too much of a problem for him last time, and I think we've been doing fine on our own so far. Minus this latest hunt."

Dean huffed out a laugh. Sam smiled.

"If he wants to stay, though," he continued, "then he has to keep his mouth shut. He can't bully us out of this like he did two years ago, and if he tries, we'll leave. We'll cut him off. We're adults, we chose each other all over again. We know exactly what we're doing. And we can choose that, too."

"You think he'll just let us walk away from him like that?" Dean asked. Not challenging Sam - just honestly asking.

"He let me walk away without much trouble," Sam pointed out, and Dean had forgotten about that. "And if we make it perfectly clear that we're not gonna let go of each other again just 'cause he wants us to, and that we're not gonna put up with him? Definitely."

"He'll hate it, though," Dean said

"Oh - man. Of course he will," Sam said, like that was so obvious he was shocked Dean had even felt the need to bring it up. "But, honestly, I don't really give a damn whether or not Dad's happy."

"Wow," Dean said, surprised. "That's...kinda cold, Sam."

"D'you think he cared about us being happy when he talked to me?" Sam fired back almost immediately, like he'd been waiting for that response. "Or when he talked to you? Or when he called us just now?"

"No, no, I'm not saying you're wrong," Dean said quickly.

As bad as it sounded at first take, he agreed with what Sam had just said. Months had passed between Dad talking to Sam and Dad talking to him, so he'd had plenty of time to cool down and think it all through. He very obviously hadn't bothered to do that. He could've talked to them together, he could've done research, he could've been calm and made an informed decision. He hadn't. And even two years later, he'd cut them off every time they'd tried to tell their side of the story, he had no grasp of their current situation, and he was still disgusted and angry. They didn't owe him any of the respect or consideration that he hadn't bothered giving them - Sam was a hundred and ten percent right about that. What'd made Dean comment on how callous it seemed was...

"It just sounds weird, coming from you. More like something I'd say." Carefully, aware of how stupid the question could come out sounding because of what they'd just been through (and were still going through, really), Dean asked, "Are you okay?"

"No," Sam replied bluntly. "I'm not. Neither are you. We haven't been okay for a long time, and we're getting better now, but I think it's gonna be a while before we can really, honestly say we're 'okay.'" He sighed heavily, closing his eyes. "I'm done holding in what I'm feeling. Even if it makes me as bad as Dad as."

What Dean had said was that it sounded like something he would say, not something Dad would say; he hoped Sam hadn't heard it like that. He let Sam take his hand when he reached for it, and gave him the eye contact he'd started searching for when he did. He wanted to tell him he wasn't anything like Dad, but with how deep they were into each other right now, he was afraid Sam'd be able to pick up on the fact that he was lying.

"This is the best part of my life," Sam said softly. Dean started frowning before he'd even finished talking, because he couldn't possibly believe that, so Sam quickly added, "I mean, it could be. We don't have to hide what we're doing any more than normal couples do, 'cause nobody but us knows we're brothers when we're on a hunt. We don't have to feel guilty about the feelings we've got for each other, and we don't have to worry about getting caught. This is the first time, since this whole thing got started, that this has happened to us. That we've had this." Sam squeezed Dean's hand. "I'm not gonna let anybody kill it before it even gets started."

"I won't, either," Dean responded quietly, squeezing back. He meant it. As much as it terrified him, really being with Sam while he knew Dad was watching them, socking it all away again actually seemed like the riskier option now that Sam had laid everything out. Dean really didn't want to lose what he'd just described. He'd been feeling the same way for a while now, but Sam had been the first one to put it in words. "So...that's what you wanna do? Wait for Dad here and 'this is us' in his face when he shows up 'til he either leaves again or learns to deal with it?"

"Doesn't sound like a great plan when you put it like that," Sam said with a small laugh. "But yeah. That's what I wanna do."

"So...no switching rooms," Dean said. "No walking on eggshells around Dad, no keeping two feet of space between us all the time..."

"Right," Sam agreed. "We don't have to, like, make out in front of him, though. We're not gonna yell at him or accuse him, either. We'll just be normal, and however he reacts to that, we'll deal with it calmly."

"Okay." Dean didn't really have anything to add to Sam's plan. It was all pretty simple, and they'd be making most of it up as they went along. That was how Dean usually liked to do things - Sam preferred to have everything mapped out with as little as possible left to chance. And he might've tried his best here, but it was tough as hell to map out something as unpredictable as how Dad was gonna react when he realized they were back to being a couple. "Sounds good to me."

"You sure you're okay with this?" Sam asked, cautiously. "You wanted to try and fool him again, originally. I don't wanna do that, but I don't think I want you agreeing to this just to make me happy, either."

"No way would I be able to do this by myself," Dean admitted. "Wouldn't have the balls." He only had to remember how he'd acted when Dad had confronted him the first time to prove that to himself. "But I think I'll be okay so long as you're with me the whole time."

Instead of commenting on Dean saying something that could've come out of a chick flick, Sam smiled. It looked empty and bleak to Dean. "That's how he did it last time - he split us up. I was stupid enough to let him talk to me alone instead of going to you, and that's not a mistake I'm gonna make this time around."

"Sam?" With the hand that Sam wasn't loosely holding, Dean reached for his little brother's face, brushing damp curls of dark hair away from it. Sam looked tired in the neon light coming in through the window. They'd had a tough day even before Dad had called and it was getting late, but they couldn't go to sleep 'til they were done talking. "Last time wasn't your fault. I don't blame you. And you don't have to fix this time all on your own."

"I know," Sam answered, then let go of Dean's hand and stretched himself out on the mattress. Dean laid down beside him, then watched him roll over. He thought he was turning away from him at first, and wondered how he'd screwed up this time. But then Sam scooted backwards into the position of the little spoon, and Dean put an arm over him.

Sam didn't say anything else, and Dean couldn't think of anything he wanted or needed to say, so he assumed that meant they were done. It was time to rest and wait for Dad to show up.

Neither of them slept much that night.

* * *

Dad didn't show the following day, which felt like the worst thing he could've done to them. Dean felt like he was strung so taut he'd vibrate if he didn't move, which, long story short, translated into pacing. A lot of pacing, mapping out the boundaries of the small room over and over again while he waited for Dad. He couldn't remember the last time he'd felt like this. Or, well, he could, but it'd happened so long ago it hardly mattered anymore. Waiting for Dad to come back to the room, pick him up, and take him on his very first hunt. On a stakeout in the woods, waiting for something awful to glide through so they could try and kill it before it took too many bites out of them. Yeah, even with how young he'd been then, this was close.

However bad Dean was, though, Sam was worse. He'd been so calm and collected last night, like he'd had everything in hand and knew it, but all of that had been long gone by the time he got up this morning. His jerky, burn-out behavior reminded Dean painfully of how he'd been right after he'd thrown Lucy. Or maybe it wasn't just a reminder. The stress of all of this might've brought that trauma boiling back to the surface - there was no way it was totally healed. Not after less than a month.

They couldn't leave the room much or for long, which only amplified everything that was wrong with them. Dad could arrive while they were gone, and neither of them wanted to come back and find him already raging about the one bed, having picked or tricked his way into their room. Sam got breakfast and lunch, desperate for air, and Dean got dinner because he was deep in a paranoia attack by then and couldn't handle going outside. When Dean got back with burgers and sodas, the way that Sam looked at him let him know he'd expected him to just leave. That pissed Dean off, because that was Sam's go-to solution when it came to problems involving Dad.

They had sex twice, but it wasn't good. Dean's orgasms, at least, were weak and unsatisfying, and he could tell both times just made Sam feel more neurotic and guilty.

Sam finally wore himself out around seven that night. He crashed in the middle of the bed, on top of the covers and with all his clothes still on. Dean pulled his shoes off and got the comforter out from under him, then laid it over him and tucked him in, because he was the older brother. Sam didn't wake up, but even his sleep was anxious: lots of twitches and grimaces. Dean wanted to lay down next to him and see if that helped, but he knew he'd fall asleep if he did.

He forced himself to stay awake on the off chance Dad came tonight. Sitting in a chair near the window so he could watch the road and the parking lot, occasionally glancing over at Sam to make sure that he wasn't having a nightmare he needed to be woken up from, Dean wondered if they should just go ahead and leave. Count on Dad not being willing or able to actually track them down. He'd known Dad longer than Sam, and right now, he felt pretty confident about the two of them having to ditch him eventually. Why not just skip right to the end and avoid all the stress of a confrontation?

He wasn't sure when he'd fallen asleep and he didn't remember getting in bed with Sam, but both of those things must've happened at some point, because he woke up under the comforter when Sam shoved a hand against his head and mumbled, "'d Dad get in las' night?"

"If he did, you think you'd still be asleep?" replied Dean.

"'aybe he won' come."

God, Dean hated to burst Sam's bubble. Especially when he was like this: half-awake, vulnerable, sounding, looking, and acting years younger than he actually was. So he just weakly agreed, "Maybe."

Sam didn't respond. After a while, Dean rolled over to face him, expecting him to be asleep; but his eyes were open, if glazed.

"You gonna get up and start tying yourself in knots again?" Dean asked Sam.

"Don't see what good that could do," Sam replied, sounding slightly more awake. He'd stopped slurring, at least. "I wanna stay in bed." He rolled over, too, putting his back to Dean. "I'm tired."

"Sounds like a plan I can get behind." Dean put a tentative arm over Sam, and was relieved when he let him do it. He must've worn himself out in more ways than one last night, to have given up on freaking out.

He'd also proved that he was more mature than Dean in some areas, again, by realizing the stress wasn't accomplishing anything. Dean really hated when he did that. The four years between them probably didn't matter so much anymore now that they were in their twenties, but Dean was still painfully aware of how much younger than him Sam was at times like these. Because he still had a slow-burning lump of anxiety where some of his more important organs should be.

Dean must've gone back to sleep in spite of that lump, because the next thing he knew, he was startling awake to "Smoke on the Water." Sam, who'd still been under his arm, shot up like somebody had stabbed a pen into his thigh, swearing loudly and foully.

 _Guess that's one way to get his ass in gear in the mornings,_ Dean thought as he sat up, too, a little more slowly, then immediately felt guilty.

"Might not be Dad," he said out loud, trying to get Sam back into the zen state he'd been in back when he'd still been mostly asleep. It was probably Dad, though. It wasn't the same number as last time when he looked at it, but it still wasn't one familiar enough to have a name attached to it in his phone.

Dean answered the call. He had to swallow to wet his mouth and throat before he said anything, knowing his voice would come out as a dry hiss if he didn't. Then he carefully asked, "Hello?"

"Hey - just got here," Dad said briskly. His voice had a vaguely-crackly quality to it that probably meant he was on a cell phone. He must've gotten a new one, with a new number.

What little moisture Dean had been able to put in his mouth spontaneously dried up, and he really, really wished he'd tried harder to talk Sam into switching to a room with two beds. Or that he'd at least gone and got a separate room for himself. Because he wasn't ready for this, he couldn't do this. Just like Sam hadn't been the night before last.

"At the motel?" Dean asked, struggling to keep the dread and panic out of his voice. Sam, who'd fallen abruptly silent when Dean answered the phone, scrambled out of bed, apparently going back to yesterday's full-speed-ahead spazziness instead of seizing up like he'd done the first time Dad had called.

"No, the diner a few blocks over," Dad replied. "You know it? The one with the rooster on the sign?"

"The diner with the rooster on the sign?" Dean repeated back to him, so that Sam would stop shaking and yanking his sneakers on before he lost his balance and cracked his head open on the Formica countertop of the kitchenette.

"Yeah. I've been driving all night, figured I'd grab breakfast." Dean glanced at the clock on the nightstand. Quarter after eight in the morning, so yeah, breakfast was reasonable. "If you two haven't eaten yet, wanna come down and join me? Hell, just come down and have some coffee if you have eaten. We can talk here."

While he'd been saying those last few things, Dean had set his phone on speaker, gotten out of bed, and taken it over to Sam (and noticed, with some embarrassment, that he'd worn his boots to bed last night or this morning, whenever he'd turned in) so that he could listen, too. Dean had forgotten about charging his phone, so he didn't have to bother with unplugging it.

They looked at each other after Dad had put that offer out there, standing over by the tiny kitchenette with its bolted-down microwave, Dean holding his cell phone and Sam holding one of his soft, preppy college-kid shoes. Dean was thinking that Dad sounded a lot calmer and more friendly than he had last time. Even if it was forcing it, it meant he was making an effort, so maybe the long drive he'd mentioned had mellowed him. And even after nearly twenty years of a relationship, Dean couldn't guess exactly what Sam was thinking. But his eyes - bright, hard, and roughly the same color as a Heineken bottle - were full of renewed determination and hope. They had prep time and distance now. It wasn't a cold open.

Dean cleared his throat before the silence could stretch out far enough for Dad to ask if he was still there. "Yeah, that sounds good. See you in a bit - gotta freshen up. Just got outta bed."

He didn't say "we," which he didn't think Sam liked, based on the look he gave him. He didn't care, though. He wanted to keep Dad in this casual mood, even if he was faking it, at least until they got to the diner. And he'd cut out as many words as he needed to do that.

"Okay, then," Dad said, and that sounded like the end of it. Instead of hanging up, though, he added, "I wanna see both of you, understand?"

"Yes, sir," Dean replied. It was automatic, just like it'd been last time, and in his opinion, it wasn't a big deal. He rolled his eyes at Sam's clear disapproval - and, when he saw him drawing in a deep breath to say something, he hurriedly said, "See you then" into the phone and hung up before he could get it out.

"Well, that's quite a turnaround," Sam said to Dean as he shoved his phone into the pocket of his jeans. He sounded mad about the fact that he wasn't getting to say it to Dad. "He was all about cornering us one-on-one two years ago. Wonder what his plan is, wanting us together."

"Okay." Dean raised his hands, palms out, to try and get Sam to slow down and realize he was running on anger alone. "Sam? I'm pissed, too, but we can't go in there swinging. Didn't you say something like that? He's probably gonna get real mad, and things are gonna go south right off the bat if we just all end up yelling at each other. We keep our cool, that makes us better than him without us really doing anything."

He didn't remember where he'd first heard or read that, that the first person to get mad and show it lost the argument, but he must've been young, because he'd had a love-hate relationship with that truth for a long time. On the one hand, he had a knack for goading authority figures, but on the other, he got angry and violent fast when the topic was something that cut him deep. Or when a monster he was interrogating didn't cooperate; when innocent lives or people he gave a damn about were hanging in the balance.

He'd never gone to either extreme with Dad. But now, with what he knew, with what had happened, with the stress of the last few weeks, with what was at stake...his emotions were gonna be running high. And in the back of his mind, he'd kinda been expecting Sam to keep him grounded. It was looking more and more like that might not happen, though.

"I know. I know," Sam said, looking frustrated as he ran a palm over his hair. He had a wicked case of bedhead.

"Night before last, your first reaction was that you couldn't handle facing Dad," Dean said. "You went from zero to sixty way too fast here."

"I know."

"You remember that plan you came up with? That was good. You gotta go back to that."

"Yeah, I do. I _know._ " Sam walked away from Dean, going back to the bed and sitting down on the edge. He still had a shoe in one of his hands (the other one was on his foot, making him look lopsided and awkward when he walked), but he didn't put it on. "You don't have to worry about having to hold me back or anything, Dean. I'm not gonna go nuts the second I see him. I'm just upset, and I still don't wanna do this." He put the shoe on, finally, as Dean followed him over to the bed. "I have to, though. Don't _worry_ about me. Just...please help me get through this."

Dean sat down next to Sam ad put arm around his shoulders. They'd reached the point in the conversation where things were getting too heavy, and he was uncomfortable and out of his depth, and they'd just been having way too many of these talks lately, and he was sick of it. So he didn't say anything. After a second, Sam leaned against him with a heavy sigh.

Dean let him have that for a while. He kind of needed it, too, to be honest. Then he pulled his arm back and said, "Dad's waiting on us. Pull on a hat or something cover up...that - " He gestured to the disaster that was Sam's head. " - and we'll go show him we ain't backing down this time."

Sam dug a gray beanie out of the bottom of his backpack and tugged it over his hair, the dark ends curling out from underneath, and then they both put on their jackets. Dean wore his leather one, passed down from Dad, and didn't think about it until they were already in the car and halfway to the diner. Sam didn't say anything, so maybe he was too preoccupied to notice it, too.

Dean started scanning the parking lot as soon as they reached it, because Dad had to have a car and he was curious about what he was driving. He knew he probably wouldn't be ale to pick it out, from all the other ones whose owners were grabbing breakfast before heading to work (and that one snow-covered lump that must've been there for weeks), especially if it was a rental, but he -

"Oh, my _god_ ," Dean blurted out the second he saw _it_. He couldn't do much else; he kept heading for the parking spot he'd chosen on autopilot, but he was surprised his foot didn't just slide off the gas and leave them stranded in the middle of the lot.

"What? What is it?" Sam, who'd been sitting quietly and breathing deeply for the whole of the short drive, probably psyching himself up, straightened and looked around.

"Oh, you have _got_ to be kidding me," Dean groaned more than said, pulling in and then killing the engine with a rough jerk of the keys. He put his hands on his head and turned, looking. _It_ was partially blocked by another car now, but he could still see way too much. "I can't believe he did this.

"What?!" Sam repeated, yesterday's hysteria edging back into his voice.

 _"That!"_ Dean didn't understand at all how Sam could've missed _it_ , but he pointed anyway to keep a breakdown out of their future.

Sam looked. Then he opened his door and climbed out of the car, leaning on the roof and squinting to get a better view. Dean followed him, waiting for a reaction. Even Sam, who was functionally illiterate when it came to everything with an engine, had to understand why this was such a nasty shock.

"Oh," Sam said, after a while. "You think that's Dad's?"

"Yeah," Dean replied heavily, feeling some of what little respect he still had for the man slipping away.

"Well, good for him," Sam said flatly. "Looks nice. Wonder how many collection agencies he's got looking for it - looks like he's got his gear in it, so he must've had it long enough for the dealership to figure out he's not gonna pay." He pounded the Impala's roof, sucking in a huge breath. "Okay. Let's do this."

He started for the front door of the diner. Dean, floored by his complete lack of...well, anything, stayed where he was, staring at him. Sam stopped as soon as he realized Dean wasn't next to him. "...what? You okay?"

"I can't even believe you," Dean said, shaking his head. Sam stared at him, then looked at _it_ again, finally putting two and two together. And getting seven.

"It's a car," he said. "He got a new car."

"That's not a _car_!" Dean exclaimed, putting a protective hand on one of the Impala's side mirrors. "It's - it's a _betrayal_!"

It was a monstrosity - a word that Dean, who hunted and killed real, actual monsters, did not use lightly. A pickup, looking so shiny and new it just had to be this year's model, or last at the very latest. Way bigger than it had to be, foreign-made, probably, dull modern shape, raised so high up off the road you'd practically have to take a running jump to get in. It had no character, no history, and no proof of love or baptisms of blood and fire. And it was black, like a mockery of better cars more deserving of the color.

There was some kind of storage thing in the bed that had to hold the arsenal. Dad had to've bought all new gear, since nothing was missing from the trunk of the Impala, and that bothered Dean almost as much as _it_ did.

"A betrayal," Sam repeated. Dean nodded. Sam put his hands on his hips and looked up at the sky as he shifted his weight, then took a breath. He couldn't seem to figure out what to do with it at first, but then he eventually said, "We have literally spent _hours_ talking about how Dad lied to us, split us up, and basically made both of us miserable for two years, and the _truck_ is a betrayal."

"This is worse," Dean blurted, then immediately backtracked. "Okay, no, no, it isn't. You're right." He paused. "But - "

"Dude." Sam cut him off. "It's a car."

Dean chewed on the inside of one of his cheeks, holding Sam's stare. Silently, he acknowledged that he was tired and frayed, that things had been rough lately, that he might be overreacting, and that this might not be the best issue to waste his limited energy on. Blowing out a breath, he walked up to the diner with Sam. As they walked through the door, though, he couldn't resist muttering, "That thing's engine'll crap out in two years, tops. Bet on it."

Sam looked at him, and Dean prepared to defend himself with a rant about planned obsolescence in newer cars. But Sam smirked, looking amused and exasperated at the same time, and quietly said, "I love you."

Hearing that made Dean realize that neither of them had said it since Dad called. He silently followed Sam into the building, not even really thinking about the truck anymore, aware they had to put a stop to all this for good.

He started scanning the crowded, noisy diner as soon as they were inside, and was sure that Sam did, too, which would've been automatic even if they hadn't been looking for Dad. You weren't brought up to fight and kill by an ex-Marine without learning how to check doors and corners.

Dad was easy to find. He was in a booth right next to the big window that stretched along the front of the diner, which meant he'd been able to see them pull up. And fight over his stupid truck. He had a plate of hash browns and scrambled eggs and a cup of coffee in front of him, but he wasn't eating. He'd been waiting for them to come in, and now he was looking at them.

Dean's first reaction was shock at how old he looked. Gray hair, tired eyes, grizzled neck and jaw. He wasn't sure if Dad had started looking like that, bit by bit, a long time ago and he was only noticing it now because he hadn't seen him for months, or if something had happened during those months to age him.

Sam slid into the booth across from Dad very first, and Dean sat next to him without a second thought. It was immediately clear that Dad noticed, though. His eyes flicked back and forth between the two of them, taking in how close they were sitting to each other, the lack of tension between the two of them, and just pretty much everything.

Dad cleared his throat after a couple seconds of silence. "Appreciate you coming out to meet me."

"Well, y'know. We _have_ kinda been looking all over the country for you, so." Sam sounded just a little too upbeat, and the smile he gave Dad was just a little too tight. Dean almost put a hand on his thigh to rein him in, then checked himself in case Dad saw the movement, then remembered they wanted him to see that kind of thing. It was too late by then, though; Sam had calmed himself down and the moment had passed.

Dad looked down at his hands, folded on the table in front of him and behind his plate, and to Dean's surprise, he looked guilty.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I didn't mean for it to turn out this way, believe me. I'm sorry Dean pulled you away from school." Dean noted, with a little spark of anger, the exact way he worded that. "I was just trying - "

He shut up abruptly when a waitress in black slacks and a waist apron came over to their booth. She smiled at Sam and Dean, pad at the ready, and asked, "Can I get you boys anything?"

"Uh, yeah." Sam leaned around Dean in order to get a good look at the menu, hanging above the counter. He also put a hand on Dean's shoulder, sending icy needles rocketing through his torso from the point of contact and ratcheting up his awareness of Dad and where he was looking. "I'll have the, uh...Denver omelette. Sourdough toast on the side."

"Coffee?" the waitress asked, scribbling.

"Pot for the table, if that's okay," Dad said. She nodded, then turned to look expectantly at Dean. It took him half a second too long to realize she was waiting for him to order. Sam had taken his hand away, and he'd been analyzing what Dad might think of that.

"Uh," he said, then coughed. "Whatever you've got with fried eggs, bacon, and sausages. And a whole lot of 'em."

"Right." She nodded, wrote down whatever the hell he'd ordered, and left. Dean wasn't sure what he'd do when she came back. He wasn't feeling hungry at all right then, but at the same time, he was craving comfort food. Something solid to put in his mouth to stop his nervousness from pushing anything stupid out. It was a weird combination.

Especially on top of everything else he was feeling. He just didn't know what to do, or how to act. He was way too aware of him and Sam, and how they looked to Dad. Doing nothing felt stiff and awkward. Doing anything else felt over-the-top and fake. Right now, he couldn't remember how he normally acted with Sam, when they weren't worried about someone watching and judging them.

As soon as the waitress was outta earshot, Dad leaned forward, lowering his voice. "I'm sorry. I can't tell either of you why I left, or what I've been doing, or where I went - it's for your own good. You gotta trust me on this."

"Trust you?" Sam repeated, incredulous, sounding like he was on the edge of a disbelieving laugh. Dean could feel the rant that was about to come pouring out of him, calling out Dad asking them to trust him and the "for your own good" part, and this time, he did put a hand on Sam's thigh. He didn't think it to death, didn't pick it to pieces, just moved to keep Sam quiet and on the higher ground. It worked; the knots he'd pulled himself into uncoiled under Dean's palm.

And Dad saw it. His eyes fastened on Dean's leather-clad shoulder when it moved, and followed it down to where his arm disappeared under the table, and he had to have figured out where it went from there. Dean saw his knuckles whiten as he squeezed his hands together more tightly.

"I didn't bring you here to talk about me," Dad said, voice tight and forcibly controlled. Dean could hear (or imagined he could hear, at least) him struggling not to blow up. He must've given himself a version of the pep talk Dean had given Sam before they'd met up. "Tell me what you two've been up to."

Dean answered before Sam could. "Well, we cleaned up that demon in Nevada." He knew that wasn't what Dad had been asking about, and he didn't care. Some of Sam's irritation had bled over into him. If Dad wanted to know whether or not they were bumping uglies again, he could ask in those exact words. "Which turned into a total shitstorm 'bout a month later...anyway, that ghost general gave us your journal once we'd set his base to rights and then we followed the coordinates you'd left in it."

"He was a colonel," Sam said. Dean glanced at him, and decided he could move his hand off his leg.

"Huh?"

"He was a colonel, not a general. The ghost."

"Fine. Whatever." Dean turned back to Dad, who'd been watching their exchange with a rock-hard face. "The ghost colonel gave us your journal and then we went to Texas and killed an adlet."

"Oh. So that's what it was," Dad said, tone neutral.

"Yeah. It bit Sam before we found out, so that was a close one," Dean replied. "Good thing it wasn't a werewolf."

"Why'd you have to send us after that thing, and the demon?" Sam quietly broke in. Dean let him talk, because he sounded calm. "What were you doing?"

Dad blew out a hard breath, annoyed. "You don't need to know what I was doing. In fact, it's better, way better, if you don't." He looked at Dean. "I thought it'd be just _you_ I was sending. I knew you were competent. Enough." Dean swallowed. "I haven't been doing much real hunting lately, and I know I won't be for a while. I thought it'd be useful to have you going after small fry, carrying on, while I was busy."

Sam's head tilted strangely, and Dean sensed danger even before he repeated, "'Small fry'? A demon's not 'small fry'. _You_ wanted him to go out by himself and exorcise a - "

And their waitress was back, juggling a pot of coffee, two mugs, and a small wire basket full of packets of creamer and sugar. Sam's jaw clapped shut with an audible _click_ of teeth coming together, and he stayed silent while she set it down and arranged all of it on the table.

He didn't continue even once she'd filled all their mugs and Dad had sent her off with a muttered "Thanks." Dean had taken his hand this time, squeezing it as a reminder to stay calm. Dad didn't ask what he'd been going to say, and for a while, they all just stared at each other. Dean eventually broke the silence.

"Food's getting cold, Dad," he said, nodding to the eggs and hash browns.

"Lost my appetite," Dad replied, sliding the untouched plate over to the edge of the table for the waitress to pick up the next time she came around. It was pretty clear what he meant. Dean squeezed Sam's hand again. "Tell me what you did after the adlet."

"Mothman on Three Mile Island," Dean said. "Bobby helped us out with that one; we're back in good with him." No reaction to that from Dad. "Then what we _thought_ was a ghost in Colorado...then a naiad in Washington. Jeez, that one was tough. Couldn't figure it out, and she almost got me."

Dad nodded in a way that said he wasn't really listening and didn't really care. "And when did you manage to wear Sammy down enough to let you stick it in him again?"

Even with the plan they'd made, it was a reflex for Dean to want to deny it. Good thing Sam answered instead of him.

"If you're asking about the first time we made love since I left," Sam began, just a tiny bite to his words. Dean appreciated that, and the emphasis on "made love," and the little jump the muscle under one of Dad's eyes gave when he said it. "Then it was after we wrapped the naiad thing up, and right after Dean exorcised the demon that'd been riding me since Colorado."

Dad's head jerked at that, eyes boring into Sam in shock. That'd definitely surprised him. Dean couldn't help a flicker of vindictive pleasure.

"You were possessed?" Dad asked. Demanded, really. "For how long? By what?"

"A demon. I told you." Sam pulled his hand out of Dean's and leaned back against the booth, folding his arms over his chest. "The same one you left for us in Nevada. It wanted revenge, and it was in me for a couple weeks."

"A couple weeks?" Dad repeated. He was getting mad now, but not about what they'd expected him to. He rounded on Dean. "How in the hell didn't you pick up on that? You went to the trouble of dragging him outta Stanford, so you must've had eyes on him at all times. Were you just too focused on his ass to notice he was acting weird?"

"He wasn't," Dean replied, closing his eyes. "I mean, he was, but it wasn't outta character for him. I tried to give him space. I figured we'd gone too fast."

"So you already had your hands down each other's pants when this demon came back," Dad summarized. "Y'know, that's probably what drew it to you in the first place. These things can taste sin."

"She wanted to end what we had," Sam said levelly. "She wanted revenge for the first exorcism, on the army base, and she knew that was what'd hurt us the most."

"So you're telling me a _demon_ tried to break you two up," Dad said. Sam reached for the basket of sugar and started ruining his coffee, focusing way too much on that. Dean kept an eye on him. "Bullshit. They go outta their way to cause incest. It probably thought you two were tame - you sure it didn't jump in Dean and spend the next two weeks rutting you into the ground?"

"Pretty fucking sure," Sam snapped at the same time Dean ground out, "Watch it." Luckily, their waitress brought their food out then and took away Dad's, giving them a minute to get back on track.

"Right," Dad said, as soon as they were alone again. "You probably would've enjoyed that."

It was directed at Sam. Dean shifted in his seat, jaw clenching, and it was Sam's turn to put a hand on his thigh.

"What matters is that Dean caught on," Sam said. "He saved me."

"And then you spread 'em," Dad deduced. "You think jumping in bed with your older brother's the right way to pay him back for that, Sammy? Are you some kinda whore?"

Dean didn't even realize he was halfway across the table until Sam's hand, clamped on the collar of his jacket, stopped him. Dad had tensed, hand darting under the table to go for something in his pocket, and his eyes were locked with Dean's. Dean slowly sat back down, half-marveling at the fact that he hadn't knocked anything over or attracted the attention of anybody else in the diner, and wondering if Sam had just saved him from getting stabbed in the face. It made something wither inside him, to realize his father was ready and willing to hurt him like that. To even risk killing him.

As the adrenaline filtered out of Dean's blood, though, he realized that it was totally possible Dad had a roll of quarters or pepper spray or something in his pocket, not a knife. Killing one of them would never even cross his mind - he was their dad.

Sam patted his back as soon as he was settled back in the booth, a little congratulations for letting himself be reined in, but Dean noticed he didn't take his eyes off Dad.

"You better stay over there," Dad said quietly.

"I will as long as you don't talk about him like that ever again," Dean said, and rushed on before Dad could reply or he could overthink it. "You crossed the line, okay? You're pissed, I get that. Nobody wants their sons screwing. But you didn't see it, you don't know what happened. You weren't there, 'cause you were off doing god knows what. It was just us. We had to deal with it. We were alone. So you don't get to say anything. Not a word about what happened after I sent that demon back to Hell where it belonged - a demon _you_ put in front of us. Not a word about him. Not a word about me."

Dad was leaning forward before he was even done, eyes like ice, voice gone low and iron-hard with fury. "Don't you even dare try to make this into something good or healthy or necessary. This is a sickness - a perversion. Something I thought I'd cured the both of you of years ago. I know - "

And that was it. Dean had started worrying about Sam losing it this morning, but he should've kept on worrying about himself the whole time. Because he was done holding back, he couldn't anymore, the dam in him had broken. What Dad had just said was what it all boiled down to, in the end. He thought he knew. He thought he knew what they had, how it'd started, who they were, what was best for them, what they needed, what they wanted deep down, how to help them. But, in reality, he didn't know anything.

Not one.

Fucking.

Thing.

"Shut up."

He'd been expecting to yell, so it was as much a surprise to him as it was to everyone else when it came out quiet. It did the job, though: Dad stopped talking. Maybe just out of surprise that Dean hadn't bowed his head and taken his abuse once he'd used up what little fight Dad thought he had in him, like usual.

He didn't care why. What mattered was that Dad had shut his mouth, and Dean wasn't going to give him a chance to open it again until he'd heard everything he had to say.

"You're gonna shut up and listen to me," Dean started. "Seems like you have a tough time with that. I know I tried to give you our side of the story, and Sam says he did, too, but you cut us off both times and crammed your version down our throats. And your version is that it's bad, it happened 'cause there's something wrong with at least one of us, it's disgusting and there's nothing good about it, it's hurting both of us real bad on some level." He was no stranger to running his mouth, but this was different. He didn't have to think about the words, they just came, and there were so _many_ of them. "You are so dead set on making this into something wrong and sick. You've spent two damn years being pissed and blaming us for it, and you know why I think that is? You know why I think you can't let it go for so much as a second? 'Cause you'll start feeling guilty, and you can't handle that."

Dean hadn't taken his eyes off Dad's face once since Sam had made him sit back down, and he'd watched the anger steadily smooth out until he was totally expressionless. That blank face struck Dean as a worse sign than red cheeks and veins popping out, but he kept talking. He had lots more to say.

"I just said you didn't have any right to talk about what we did after the exorcism," Dean said. "'Cause you weren't there. And you know what? That just applies to this whole thing. You weren't there. You were never there. And we never stayed in one place long enough for anybody to fill that hole you kept on leaving us with - nobody but each other. I only ever had him, and by the time I hit double digits, I only wanted him. Same thing happened with him. We can barely function without each other 'cause you missed just about everything we had to help each other through, and you think what we need is to be split up? That the best thing for us'd be to hate each other?" Dean had his hands on the table, gripping the edge. "First time anything ever happened, I was seven. I think that's when it really started. You were totally clueless for over fifteen years. Teachers at schools we only spent a couple weeks in picked up on it, and you didn't. Not sure if you didn't wanna see it, or if you just never paid enough attention to us, but when you finally did figure it out, it was only 'cause you got lucky and walked in on us. With what that says about you, you still think it's all on us?"

Sam was drinking his sugary coffee next to him. Dean couldn't see him all that well, just peripheral vision, but he thought his eyes were closed, and that the lashes were wet. Across from them, Dad's blankness had cracked slightly, letting something Dean couldn't quite put a name to show through. His mouth worked; he swallowed and looked away for the first time since Dean had jumped at him. Dean took a breather, partly because he needed one and partly because he had a weird feeling Dad was about to say something he'd wanna hear.

"I'm sorry." Dad muttered it out. Dean wouldn't've known he'd said it if he hadn't been listening for it and watching his lips.

He laughed - that was his first, unstoppable reaction. "Jesus Christ. I'm not asking you to apologize." Sam cleared his throat. He probably appreciated the apology, which was admittedly a pretty big deal. Dean ignored him for the moment, though. "My point is that you don't know anything about us, and our relationship isn't what you think it is. Nobody talked anybody into anything; we both wanted it. We went over it so many times, how it was wrong, but we always decided to keep going 'cause of how we felt. We needed it. We still need it - we probably always will." Dean swallowed. "I love him. It's not just some perverted sex thing."

After a second, it was his turn to look away. He'd run out of steam, regretted saying everything he had, and kinda wanted to get up and leave. He couldn't do that, though, so he did the next best thing: picked up his fork and focused on his breakfast. He should've started earlier. Their waitress had given him exactly what he'd asked for, and it'd gotten cold, the grease congealing.

"We didn't meet with you so you could yell about how disgusted you are with us." Sam was the next person to speak, voice soft and level. "We know what you did - how you lied to us. We're adults, and we've chosen to stay together in spite of the problems with our relationship. We've also decided we're not going to make ourselves miserable again just because you tell us to." He coughed. "We won't - can't - ask you to like it. You can even leave again and pretend you don't have sons, if you want. But you have to accept there's nothing you can do to make us leave each other."

Silence. Then Dad said, "I have to leave again anyway, after this." He reached for his coffee, probably room temperature by now, and said, "You two do whatever you want. I don't care."

Dean knew that was the closest they'd get to a blessing from him. Sam knew it, too. He lowered his head and murmured, "Thank you."

Dad didn't reply. After a little bit, Dean nudged Sam and nodded to his omelette. "Better eat up. We're probably gonna leave town today."

For the most part, they ate in silence. Dad drank his coffee and seemed to try not to look at them. There was one point, though, where he turned his attention to Sam.

"The demon," he said. "Did it say anything to you?"

"What d'you mean?" Sam asked, after swallowing a mouthful of egg and diced tomatoes.

"Just anything weird."

Sam was quiet. For maybe just a little too long. Dean glanced over at him just in time to see him shake his head.

"No, not really," he replied, refilling his now-empty mug from the pot of coffee. "She did call me a whore a lot, though."

Dad let the subject drop.

He didn't pick up the check when it came, and Dean wasn't sure why he'd been half-expecting him to. He paid for his meal, and they paid for theirs. They got up, Dean letting his shoulder brush against Sam's as they did so, and left. It wasn't until he was unlocking the Impala that he realized Sam wasn't with him anymore.

He looked up and spotted him immediately - right outside the diner, talking to Dad. Dean took a step towards them, gut tightening, but Sam must've caught sight of him outta the corner of his eye, because he glanced at him and shook his head. So Dean stayed where he was. He watched Sam shake his head again, facing Dad this time, and Dad run a hand over his hair and sigh. Then they walked in separate directions: Dad towards his jacked-up abomination, Sam towards Dean. As soon as he was within earshot, Dean started talking.

"Goddammit, Sam, I am so sorry," he said. "Shouldn't've let him get you alone. God, I am so stupid - I swear, I'm gonna go after him and kick his freaking teeth in if he - "

"No, no. Dean." Sam cut him off. "It wasn't about us."

"Then...what was it about?" They opened their doors and got in. Dean on the driver's side, Sam sitting shotgun.

"Hunting." Sam looked troubled. "He told me I could still...quit again, if I wanted. And go home. To California."

"And what'd you say?" Dean made no move to reach for the keys.

"I told him I was home." Sam looked at him, and half-smiled. "Home is wherever you are."

Dean looked away, embarrassed. "You know I'd go with you if that's what you wanted."

When he looked at Sam again, his expression was almost...wistful or something, Dean didn't know, but he was also shaking his head.

"No," he said. "We've got work to do."

"Damn straight." Dean jammed the keys in the ignition. The engine roared to life, and they were off.


End file.
